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A COLLECTION OF 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY 



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This Edition is limited to five hundred 
copies, of which tins is No..... 



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A COLLECTION OF 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY 



1847-185-5' 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

MDCCCLXXXVII 



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COPYRIGHT, 1886, 1887 
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



[All rights rcscnjed\ 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 

^*^ In arranging the letters for publication, a sim- 
ple chronological order has been followed, regardless 
of their relative importance. In some cases the origi- 
nals were not dated ; and in each of these instances 
an effort has been made to supply the omission. Often 
it has been possible to do this with certainty ; and in 
that case the date is printed above the letter in Roman 
type. Where such certainty could not be reached, 
conjectural dates are given in italics and enclosed in 
brackets ; but even then they have been so far verified 
by means of incidents referred to in the letters, or 
other evidence, that they may be depended upon as 
fixing very closely the time of the notes to which they 
are attached. In this final arrangement of the letters, 
and in some additional annotation, the publishers have 
enjoyed the privilege of advice and assistance from 
Mr. James Russell Lowell, who kindly consented, with 



vi LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

the cordial approval and thanks of Mrs. Brookfield, to 
give them this aid. 

The publishers are permitted to make public the 
following letter from Mrs. Ritchie to Mrs. Brookfield : 

36a Rosary Gardens, Hereford Square, S. W. 

April 28. 

My Dear Mrs. Brookfield : 

I am very glad to hear that you have made a satisfactory 
arrangement for publishing your selections from my Father's 
letters. I am of course unable myself by his expressed wish 
to do anything of the sort. While I am glad to be spared 
the doubts and difficulties of such a work, I have often felt 
sorry to think that no one should ever know more of him. 
You know better than anyone what we should like said or 
unsaid, and what he would have wished ; so that I am very 
glad to think you have undertaken the work, and am always 
your affectionate 

Anne Ritchie. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



THE REPRODUCTIONS, UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED, ARE MADE FROM 

DRAWINGS AND LETTERS IN THE POSSESSION 

OF MRS. BROOKFIELD 



IVILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, . . Frontispiece 

Engraved by G. Krue/l after the portrait by Samuel 
Laurence. 

PAGE 

yignette — Drawing by Thackeray of Mrs. Broohfield and 

her two maids, Tiirpin and Payne, 5 

Passage from a letter to Mr. Broolifield, with drawing, 

"My Barb is at the Postern," 9 

Passage from a letter from Brussels, with drawing, " The 

Broken Knife," 10 

From the same letter, with drawing, " The Slashers," . 12 

Drawing by Thackeray in water color and pencil (Mrs. 

Broohfield), 18 

Clevedon Court (from a recent photograph), . ... 28 

Passage from a letter to Mr. Broohfield, with drawing, 

"Harry Hallam with Dog and Gun," .... 29 



Passage from a letter of November i , 1848, with drawing, 

"A Party of Us Drove in an Oxford Cart," . . j/ 

From the same, with drawing, " The Oxford Man's 

Bed," _J2 

Drawing by Thackeray, an equestrian statue of himself, . . 40 

Facsimile of a minute dinner-note from Thackeray, . . 5/ 

Sketch of Mrs. Brookfield (from a collection of Thackeray's 
drawings privately printed for Sir Arthur Elton, of 
Clevedon Court), ^4 

In the Nursery at Clevedon Court (from the Clevedon 

drawings), 62 

Passage from a letter from Brighton, with drawing, "An 

Evening Reading," 63 

Clevedon Church (from a recent photograph), . ... 68 

Note sent by Thackeray to Mrs. Elliot, written in the 

form of the initials f. O. B., 72 

Facsimile of a letter from Paris, with sketch of Jules 

Janin, 80 

Stanza from the original manuscript of dough's "Flags of 
Piccadilly," with a drawing by Thackeray, in the 
possession of Mr. James Russell Lowell, . . - . . 82 

Note and sketch sent by Thackeray to Mrs. Elliot, in the 

possession of Miss Kate Perry, 94 

Facsimile of letter from Dieppe, with drawings of Angelina 

Henrion and a clergyman's wife, . .. . . .no 



VUl 



" The Lady of the House," a drawing by Thackeray (perhaps 

Lady Castlereagh ? ) , 114 

The Statuette of Thackeray by foseph Edgar Boebm, R.A., . 118 

Memorial Tablets to Arthur and Henry Hallam in Clevedon 

Church (from a photograph ) , /jjo 

Sketch by T'Mckeray, 138 

Facsimile of a letter to Mrs. Elliot, now in the possession 

of her sister, Miss Kate Perry, 142 

In the School-room of Clevedon Court (from the Clevedon 

drawings), 148 

Passage from a letter from Switzerland, with drawing of 

the View from a Window at Basel, 1^0 

Sketch by Thackeray — His Daughters and Major and Mrs. 

Carmichael Smyth, . . . . , . . .1^4 

Portrait of Thackeray (from a photograph in the possession 

of Mrs. James T. Fields), 1^8 

Vignette— Profile of the Boehm Statuette, . . . . iy6 

Portrait of Thackeray (from a drawing by Samuel Laurence), . i'j8 

Vignette — Drawing sent to Miss Kate Perry, _ . . . . 18} 



INTRODUCTION. 



NO writer of recent times is so much quoted as 
Thackeray ; scarcely a week passes without his 
name recurrino- in one or other of the leading 
articles of the day ; and yet whilst his published works 
retain their influence so firmly, the personal impression 
of his life and conversation becomes more and more 
shadowy and indistinct as the friends who knew and 
loved him the most are gradually becoming fewer and 
passing away. 

Thackeray's nature was essentially modest and re- 
tiring. More than once it appears that he had desired 
his daughter to publish no memoir of him. Mrs. Ritchie, 
who alone could do justice to her Father's memory, 
and who has inherited the true woman's share of his 
genius, and of the tender and perceptive sympathy of 
his character, has ever held this injunction sacred, even 
to the extent of withholding all his letters to his family 
from publication. Yet it happens from time to time 
that some chance letters of doubtful authenticity, and 
others utterly spurious, have appeared in print, and 
have even perhaps found acceptance amongst those 
who, knowing him only by his published works, were 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

without the true key for distinguishing what was genu- 
ine from what was simply counterfeit. 

The letters which form this collection were most of 
them written by Mr. Thackeray to my husband, the 
late Rev'd W. H. Brookfield, and myself, from about 
1847, ^'^^ continuing during many years of intimate 
friendship, beginning from the time when he first lived 
in London, and when he especially needed our sym- 
pathy. His happy married life had been broken up 
by the malady which fell upon his young wife after the 
birth of her youngest child ; his two remaining little 
girls were under his mother's care, at Paris. Mr. 
Thackeray was living alone in London. " Vanity 
Fair " was not yet written when these letters begin. 
His fame was not yet established in the world at large ; 
but amongst his close personal friends, an undoubting 
belief in his genius had already become strongly rooted. 
No one earlier than my dear gifted husband adopted 
and proclaimed this new faith. The letters now so 
informally collected together are not a consecutive 
series ; but they have always been carefully preserved 
with sincere affection by those to whom they were 
written. Some of them are here given without the 
omission of a word ; others are extracts from com- 
munications of a more private character ; but if every 
one of these letters from Thackeray could be rightly 
made public, without the slightest restriction, they 
would all the more redound to his honour. 

Jane Octavia Brookfield. 

29 Caklyle Square, Chelsea. 



LETTERS. 




[yan. 1847.] 

ITo Mr. Brookfield.-] 
My Dear W. : 

There will be no dinner at Greenwich on Monday. 
Dickens has chosen that day for a reconciliation banquet 
between Forster and me. 

Is madame gone and is she better ? My heart follows 
her respectfully to Devonshire and the dismal scenes of my 
youth. 

I am being brought to bed of my seventh darling with 
inexpressible throes: and dine out every day until Jzcice 
knows when. 

I will come to you on Sunday night if you like — though 
stop, why shouldn't you, after church, come and sleep out 
here in the country ? 

Yours, 

Jos. OSBORN. 



6 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

\_August, 1847.] 

\To Mr. Brookfield.^ 

LE DiMANCHE. 

Monsieur l'Abbe: 

De retour de Gravesend j'ai trouve chez moi un billet 
de M. Crowe, qui m'invite a diner demain a 6 heures pre- 
cises a Ampstead. 

En meme temps M. Crowe m'a envoye una lettre pour 
vous, — ne vous trouvant pas a votre ancien logement (oii 
I'adresse de I'horrible bouge ou vous demeurez actuelle- 
ment est heureusement ignoree) — force fut a M. Crowe de 
s'adresser a moi — a moi qui connais I'ignoble caveau que 
vous occupez indignement, sous les dalles humides d'une 
eglise deserte, dans le voisinage fetide de fourmillants Ir- 
landais. 

Cette lettre, Monsieur, dont je parle — cette lettre — je 
I'ai laissee a la maison. Demain il sera trop tard de vous 
faire part de I'aimable invitation de notre ami commun. 

Je remplis enfin mon devoir envers M. Crowe en vous 
faisant savoir ses intentions hospitalieres a votre egard. Et 
je vous quitte. Monsieur, en vous donnant les assurances 
reiterees de ma haute consideration. 

Chevalier de Titmarsh. 

J'offre a Madame I'Abbesse mes hommages respec- 
tueux. 

1847. 

iTo Mr. Brookfield.'] 
My Dear old B. : 

Can you come and dine on Thursday at six ? I shall be 
at home — no party — nothing — only me. And about your 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 7 

night-cap, why not come out for a day or two, though the 
rooms are very comfortable in the Church vaults.* Fare- 
well. 

Ever your 

Louisa. 
(And Madam, is she well ? ) 

[1847.] 
\_Enclosing the following note.'] 

Temple, 8 Nov. 

My Dear Thackeray : 

A thousand thanks. It will do admirably, and I will not 
tax you again in the same manner. Don't get nervous or 
think about criticism, or trouble yourself about the opinions 
of friends ; you have completely beaten Dickens out of the 
inner circle already. I dine at Gore House to-day ; look in 
if you can. 

Ever yours, 

A. H. 

Madam : 

Although I am certainly committing a breach of confi- 
dence, I venture to offer my friend up to you, because you 
have considerable humour, and I think will possibly laugh at 

* In this Letter, and elsewhere, reference is made to my husband's living in the 
'* church vaults." Our income at this time was very small, and a long illness had involved 
us in some difficulty. Mr. Brooktield's aversion to debt and his firm rectitude of principle 
decided him to give up our lodgings, and to remove by himself into the vestry of his District 
Church, which was situated in a very squalid neighborhood. Here he could live rent free, 
and in the midst of his parish work, whilst he sent me to stay with my dear father, the late Sir 
Charles Elton, at Clevedon Court, for the recovery of my health. At this juncture our cir- 
cumstances gradually brightened. Mr. Thackeray, my uncle, Mr. Hallam, and other friends 
interested themselves towards obtaining better preferment for Mr. Brookfield, whose great 
ability and high character were brought to the notice of Lord Lansdowne, then President of 
the Council, and head of the Education Department. He appointed Mr. Brookfield to be one 
of H. M. Inspectors of Schools, an employment which was very congenial to him. Our dif- 
ficulties were then removed, and we were able to establish ourselves in a comfortable house 
in Portman Street, to which so many of these letters are addressed. 



8 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

him. You know you yourself often hand over some folks to 
some other folks, and deserve to be treated as you treat 
others. 

The circumstances arose of a letter which H sent 

me, containing prodigious compliments. I answered that 
these praises from all quarters frightened me rather than 
elated me, and sent him a drawing for a lady's album, with a 
caution not to ask for any more, hence the reply. Ah ! 
Madame, how much richer truth is than fiction, and how 
great that phrase about the " inner circle " is. 

I write from the place from which I heard your little voice 
last night, I mean this morning, at who knows how much 
o'clock. I wonder whether you will laugh as much as I do ; 
my papa in the next room must think me insane, but I am 
not, and am of Madame, the Serviteur and Frcre affectionnti. 

W. M. T. 

[1847.] 
\To Mr. Brookfield.'] 

My dear W. H. B. : 

I daresay you are disgusted at my not coming to the 
boiige, on Sunday night, but there was a good reason, which 
may be explained if required hereafter. And I had made up 
my account for some days at Southampton, hoping to start 
this day, but there is another good reason for staying at 
home. Poor old grandmother's will, burial &c., detained me 
in town. Did you see her death in the paper ? 

Why I write now, is to beg, and implore, and intreat that 
you and Mrs. Brookfield will come and take these three nice 
little rooms here, and stop with me until you have found 
other lodgment. It will be the very greatest comfort and 
kindness to me, and I shall take it quite hangry if you don't 
come. Will you come on Saturday now ? the good things 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



you shall have for dinner are quite incredible. I have got a 
box of preserved apricots from Fortnum and Mason's which 
alone ought to make any lady happy, and two shall be put 
under my lady's pillow every night. Now do come — and 
farewell. My barb is at the postern. I have had him clipped 
and his effect in the Park is quite tremenjus. 

JIkU W- ^(*| Ui*At,. Iiu4 LJy P""***' JiJifOu. \iuu)Xi:. 




I L- LxUw cl^ <ua U <^j ^ lit, 7^ t; 



Brussels, Friday [28 July], 1848. 
I have just had a dreadful omen. Somebody gave me a 
paper-knife with a mother of pearl blade and a beautiful Sil- 
ver handle. Annie recognised it in a minute, lying upon 
my dressing table, with a " Here's Mrs. So and So's butter 
knife." I suppose she cannot have seen it above twice, but 
that child remembers everything. Well, this morning, being 
fairly on my travels, and having the butter knife in my desk, 



lO 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



I thought I would begin to cut open a book I had bought, 
never having as yet had occasion to use it. The moment I 
tried, the blade broke away from the beautiful handle. What 
does this portend } It is now — [here drawing] There is a 
blade and there is a hilt, but they refuse to act together. 
Something is going to happen I am sure. 

I took leave of my family on Sunday, after a day in 
the rain at Hampton Court. . . . Forster * was 
dining with Mr. Chapman the publisher, where we 
passed the day. His article in the Examiner did not please 
me so much as his genuine good nature in insisting upon 
walking with Annie at night, and holding an umbrella over 
her through the pouring rain. Did you read the Spectator s 
sarcastic notice of V. F. ? I don't think it is just, but think 
Kintoul is a very honest man and rather inclined to deal 
severely with his private friends, lest he should fall into the 
other extreme ; — to be sure he keeps out of it, I mean the 
other extreme, very well. 

I passed Monday night and part of Tuesday in the artless 
society of some officers of the 21st, or Royal Scots Fusiliers, 
in garrison at Canterbury. We went to a barrack room, 
where we drank about, out of a Silver cup and a glass. I 
heard such stale old garrison stories. I recognised among 
the stories many old friends of my youth, very pleasant to 
meet when one was eighteen, but of whom one is rather shy 
now. Not so these officers, however ; they tell each other 
the stalest and wickedest old Joe Millers ; the jolly grey- 
headed old majors have no reverence for the beardless en- 

* John Forster, the intimate friend of Charles Dickens, and well-known writer. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. II 

signs, nor vice-versa. I heard of the father and son in the 
other regiment in garrison at Canterbury, the Slashers if 
you please, being carried up drunk to bed the night before. 
Fancy what a life. Some of ours, — I don't mean yours 
Madam, but I mean mine and others — are not much better, 
though more civilised. 

We went to see the wizard Jacobs at the theatre, he came 
up in the midst of the entertainment, and spoke across the 
box to the young officers ; — he knows them in private life, 
they think him a good fellow. He came up and asked them 
confidentially, if they didn't like a trick he had just performed. 
" Neat little thing isn't it ? " the great Jacobs said, " I brought 
it over from Paris." They go to his entertainment every night, 
fancy what a career of pleasure! 

A wholesome young Squire with a large brown face and 
a short waistcoat, came up to us and said, " Sorry you're goin', 
I have sent up to barracks a great lot o' rabbuts." They were 
of no use, those rabbids : the 2 ist was to march the next day. 
I saw the men walking about on the last day, taking leave 
of their sweethearts, (who will probably be consoled by the 
Slashers). 

I was carried off by my brother-in-law through the rain, 
to see a great sight, the regimental soup-tureens and dishcov- 
ers, before they were put away. "Feel that" says he, "Will- 
iam, just feel the weight of that ! " I was called upon twice to 
try the weight of that soup dish, and expressed the very high- 
est gratification at being admitted to that privilege. Poor 
simple young fellows and old youngsters ! I felt ashamed of 
myself for spying out their follies and fled from them and came 
off to Dover. It was pouring with rain all day, and I had 
no opportunity of putting anything into the beautiful new 
sketch books. 

I passed an hour in the Cathedral, which seemed all beau- 
tiful to me ; the fifteenth Century part, the thirteenth century 



12 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY, 



part, and the crypt above all, which they say is older than the 
Conquest. The most charming, harmonious, powerful com- 
bination of shafts and arches, beautiful whichever way you 
saw them developed, like a fine music or the figures in a 
Kaleidoscope, rolling out mysteriously, a beautiful foundation 
for a beautiful building. I thought how some people's tower- 

J, ^ t«^ U <- ' ZaUuIj . 4^ W^ ^ <u. w 11^- ''UtJ; .ttL 21'.' '^ 

] ij^Li W-ftu f*^^ ^(Ui 'I li^^Jw 

ilUoLtru. li l^««j <i«tuun<4 fc ItrJ klwait^^ . iW Ju^jJi i|i»ut^ UlWl 




ing intellects and splendid cultivated geniuses rise upon sim- 
ple, beautiful foundations hidden out of sight, and how this 
might be a good simile, if I knew of any very good and wise 
man just now. But I don't know of many, do you ? 

Part of the Crypt was given up to French Calvinists ; and 
texts from the French Bible of some later sect are still painted 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 3 

on the pillars, surrounded by French ornaments, looking very 
■queer and out of place. So, for the matter of that, do we 
look queer and out of place in that grand soaring artificial 
building: we may put a shovel hat on the pinnacle of the 
steeple, as Omar did a crescent on the peak of the church at 
Jerusalem ; but it does not belong to us, I mean according to 
the fitness of things. We ought to go to church in a very 
strong, elegant, beautifully neat room ; croziers, and banners, 
incense, and jimcracks, grand processions of priests and monks 
(with an inquisition in the distance), and lies, avarice, tyranny, 
torture, all sorts of horrible and unnatural oppressions and 
falsehoods kept out of sight ; such a place as this ought to 
belong to the old religion. How somebody of my acquaint- 
ance would like to walk into a beautiful calm confessional and 
go and kiss the rood or the pavement of a'Becket's shrine. 
Fancy the church quite full ; the altar lined with pontifical 
gentlemen bobbing up and down ; the dear little boys in white 
and red flinging about the incense pots; the music roaring 
out from the organs ; all the monks and clergy in their stalls, 
and the archbishop on his throne — O ! how fine ! And then 
think of the + of our Lord speaking quite simply to simple 
Syrian people, a child or two maybe at his knees, as he taught 
them that love was the truth. Ah ! as one thinks of it, how 
grand that figure looks, and how small all the rest ; but I dare 
say I am getting out of my depth. 

I came on hither [to Brussels] yesterday, having passed 
the day previous at Dover, where it rained incessantly, and 
where I only had the courage to write the first sentence of 
this letter, being utterly cast down and more under the influ- 
ence of blue devils than I ever remember before ; but a fine 
bright sky at five o'clock in the morning, and a jolly brisk 
breeze, and the ship cutting through the water at fifteen miles 
an hour, restored cheerfulness to this wearied spirit, and en- 
abled it to partake freely of beefsteak and pommes-de-terre at 



14 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

Ostend ; after an hour of which amusement, it was time to 
take the train and come on to Brussels. The country is de- 
lightfully well cultivated ; all along the line you pass by the 
most cheerful landscapes with old cities, gardens, cornfields 
and rustic labour. 

At the table d'hdie I sat next a French Gentleman and his 
lady. She first sent away the bread ; she then said " mats, 
moil ami, ce potage est abominable ; then she took a piece of 
pudding on her fork, not to eat, but to smell, after which she 
sent it away. Experience told me it was a little grisette giv- 
ing herself airs, so I complimented the waiter on the bread, 
recommended the soup to a man, and took two portions of 
the pudding, under her nose. 

Then we went (I found a companion, an ardent admirer, 
in the person of a Manchester merchant) to the play, to see 
Dejazet, in the " Gcntil Bernard" of which piece I shall say 
nothing, but I think it was the wickedest I ever saw, and one 
of the pleasantest, adorably funny and naughty. As the part 
{^Gentil Bernard is a prodigious rake,) is acted by a woman, 
the reality is taken from it, and one can bear to listen, but 
such a little rake, such charming impudence, such little songs, 
such little dresses ! She looked as mignonne as a china im- 
age, and danced, fought, sang and capered, in a way that 
would have sent Walpole mad could he have seen her. 

And now writing has made me hungry, and if you please 
I will go and breakfast at a Cafe with lots of newspapers, 
and gar^ons bawling out " Voila M'sieu " — how pleasant to 
think of! The Manchester admirer goes to London to-day 
and will take this. If you want any more please send me 
word Poste Restante at Spa. 

I am going to-day to the Hotel de la Terrasse, where 
Becky used to live, and shall pass by Captain Osborn's lodg- 
ings, where I recollect meeting him and his little wife — who has 
married again somebody told me ; — but it is always the way 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 15 

with these grandes passions — Mrs. Dobbins, or some such 
name, she is now ; always an over-rated woman, I thought. 
How curious it is ! I beheve perfectly in all those people, 
and feel quite an interest in the Inn in which they lived. 
Good bye, my dear gentleman and lady, and let me hear 
the latter is getting well. 

W. M. T. 

H6tel des Pays Bas, Spa. 

August 1st to 5th. 1848. 
My dear friends : 

Whoever you may be who receive these lines, — for un- 
less I receive a letter from the person whom I privately 
mean, I shall send them post-paid to somebody else, — I have 
the pleasure to inform you, that on yesterday, the 30th, at 
7 A.M., I left Brussels, with which I was much pleased, and 
not a little tired, and arrived quite safe per railroad and dili- 
gence at the watering place of Spa. I slept a great deal in 
the coach, having bought a book at Brussels to amuse me, 
and having for companions, three clergymen (of the deplo- 
rable Romish faith) with large idolatrous three-cornered hats, 
who read their breviaries all the time I was awake, and I 
have no doubt gave utterance to their damnable Popish opin- 
ions when the stranger's ears were closed ; and lucky for the 
priests that I was so situated, for speaking their language a 
great deal better than they do themselves (being not only 
image- viTorshippers but Belgians, whose jargon is as abomi- 
nable as their superstition) I would have engaged them in a 
controversy, in which I daresay they would have been utterly 
confounded by one who had the Thirty-nine Articles of truth 
on his side. Their hats could hardly get out of the coach 
door when they quitted the carriage, and one of them, when 
he took off his, to make a parting salute to the company, 
quite extinguished a little passenger. 



■jr ■/ ' 

1 6 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

We arrived at Spa at two o'clock, and being driven on 
the top of the diligence to two of the principal hotels, they 
would not take me in as I had only a little portmanteau, or 
at least only would offer me a servant's bedroom. These 
miserable miscreants did not see by my appearance that I 
was not a flunkey, but on the contrary, a great and popular 
author ; and I intend to have two fine pictures painted when 
I return to England, of the landlord of the Hotel d'Orange re- 
fusing a bed-chamber to the celebrated Titmarsh, and of the 
proprietor of the Hotel d'York, offering Jeames a second- 
floor back closet. Poor misguided people ! It was on the 
30th July 1848. The first thing I did after at length secur- 
ing a handsome apartment at the Hotel des Pays Bas, was to 
survey the town and partake of a glass of water at the Pouhon 
well, where the late Peter the Great, the imperator of the 
Bo-Russians appears also to have drunk ; so that two great 
men at least have refreshed themselves at that fountain. I 
was next conducted to the baths, where a splendid concert of 
wind and stringed instruments was performed under my win- 
dow, and many hundreds of gentle-folks of all nations were 
congregated in the public walk, no doubt to celebrate my ar- 
rival. They are so polite however at this place of elegant 
ease, that they didn't take the least notice of the Illustrious 
Stranger, but allowed him to walk about quite unmolested 
and, (to all appearance) unremarked. I went to the table 
d hole with perfect affability, just like an ordinary person ; an 
ordinary person at the table d' hole, mark the pleasantry. If 
that joke doesn't make your sides ache, what, my dear friend, 
can move you ? We had a number of good things, fifteen or 
sixteen too many I should say. I was myself obliged to give 
in at about the twenty-fifth dish ; but there was a Flemish 
lady near me, a fair blue-eyed being, who carried on long 
after the English author's meal was concluded, and who said 
at dinner to-day, (when she beat me by at least treble the 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 7 

amount of victuals) that she was languid and tired all day, 
and an invalid, so weak and delicate that she could not walk. 
" No wonder," thought an observer of human nature, who 
saw her eating a second supply of lobster salad, which she 
introduced with her knife, " no wonder, my blue-eyed female, 
that you are ill, when you take such a preposterous quantity 
of nourishment ; " but as the waters of this place are emi- 
nently ferruginous, I presume that she used the knife in ques- 
tion for the purpose of taking steel with her dinner. The 
subject I feel is growing painful, and we will, if you please, 
turn to more delicate themes. 

I retired to my apartment at seven, with the same book 
which I had purchased, and which sent me into a second 
sleep until ten when it was time to go to rest. At eight I 
was up and stirring, at 8.30 I was climbing the brow of a lit- 
tle mountain which overlooks this pretty town, and whence, 
from among firs and oaks, I could look down upon the spires 
of the church, and the roofs of the Redoute, and the princi- 
pal and inferior buildings and the vast plains, and hills be- 
yond, topped in many places with pine woods, and covered 
with green crops and yellow corn. Had I a friend to walk 
hand in hand with, him or her, on these quiet hills, the prom- 
enade methinks might be pleasant. I thought of many such 
as I paced among the rocks and shrubberies. Breakfast suc- 
ceeded that solitary, but healthy reverie, when coffee and 
eggs were served to the Victim of Sentiment. Sketch-book 
in hand, the individual last alluded to set forth in quest of ob- 
jects suitable for his pencil. But it is more respectful to Nat- 
ure to look at her and gaze with pleasure, rather than to sit 
down with pert assurance, and begin to take her portrait. A 
man who persists in sketching, is like one who insists on 
singing during the performance of an opera. What business 
has he to be trying his stupid voice ? He is not there to imi- 
tate, but to admire to the best of his power. Thrice the rain 



1 8 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

came down and drove me away from my foolish endeavours, 
as I was making the most abominable caricatures of pretty, 
quaint cottages, shaded by huge ancient trees. 

In the evening was a fine music at the Redoute, which 
being concluded, those who had a mind were free to repair 
to a magnificent neighbouring saloon, superbly lighted, where 
a great number of persons were assembled amusing them- 
selves, round two tables covered with green cloth and orna- 
mented with a great deal of money. They were engaged at 
a game which seems very simple ; one side of the table is 
marked red and the other black, and you have but to decide 
which of the red or the black you prefer, and if the colour 
you choose is turned up on the cards, which a gentleman 
deals, another gentleman opposite to him gives you five 
franks, or a napoleon or whatever sum of money you have 
thought fit to bet upon your favourite colour. 

But if your colour loses, then he takes your napoleon. 
This he did, I am sorry to say, to me twice, and as I thought 
this was enough, I came home and wrote a letter, full of non- 
sense to — 

\August I ith] 

My Dear Mrs. Brookfield : 

You see how nearly you were missing this delightful let- 
ter, for upon my word I had packed it up small and was going 
to send it off in a rage to somebody else, this very day, to a 
young lady whom some people think over-rated very likely, 
or to some deserving person, when, O gioja e felicita (I don't 
know whether that is the way to spell gioja, but rather 
pique myself on the g) when O ! bonheur suprime, the waiter 
enters my door at lo o'clock this morning, just as I had fin- 
ished writing page seven of PENDENNIS, and brings me 
the Times newspaper and a beautiful thick 2/4 letter, in a 
fine large hand. I eagerly seized — the newspaper, (ha ha ! I 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 9 

had somebody there) and was quickly absorbed in its con» 
tents. The news from Ireland is of great interest and im^ 
portance, and we may indeed return thanks that the deplo- 
rable revolution and rebellion, which everybody anticipated in 
that country, has been averted in so singular, I may say un- 
precedented a manner. How pitiful is the figure cut by Mr. 
Smith O'Brien, and indeed by Popery altogether ! &c. &c. 

One day is passed away here very like its defunct prede- 
cessor. I have not lost any more money at the odious gam- 
bling table, but go and watch the players there with a great 
deal of interest. There are ladies playing — young and pretty 
ones too. One is very like a lady I used to know, a curate's 
wife in a street off Golden Square, whatdyoucallit street, 
where the pianoforte maker lives ; and I daresay this person 
is puzzled why I always go and stare at her so. She has her 
whole soul in the pastime, puts out her five-franc pieces in 
the most timid way, and watches them disappear under the 
croupier s rake with eyes so uncommonly sad and tender, 
that I feel inclined to go up to her and say " Madam, you are 
exceedingly like a lady, a curate's wife whom I once knew, in 
England, and as I take an interest in you, I wish you would 
get out of this place as quick as you can, and take your beau- 
tiful eyes off the black and red." But I suppose it would be 
thought rude if I were to make any such statement and — 
Ah ! what do I remember ? There's no use in sending off 
this letter to-day, this is Friday, and it cannot be delivered 
on Sunday in a Protestant metropolis. There was no use in 

hurrying home from Lady , (Never mind, it is only an 

Irish baronet's wife, who tries to disguise her Limerick 
brogue, but the fact is she has an exceedingly pretty daugh- 
ter), I say there was no use in hurrying home so as to get 
this off by the post. 

Yesterday I didn't know a soul in this place, but got in 
the course of the day a neat note from a lady who had the 



20 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

delight of an introduction to me at D-v-nsh-re House, and 
who proposed tea in the most flattering manner. Now, I 
know a French duke and duchess, and at least six of the 
most genteel persons in Spa, and some of us are going out 
riding in a few minutes, the rain having cleared off, the sky 
being: bright, and the surrounding hills and woods lookinp' 
uncommonly green and tempting. 

A pause of two hours is stipposed to have taken place since 
the above was written. A gentleman enters, as if from horse- 
back, into the room No. 32 of the Hotel des Pays Bas, look- 
ing on to the fountain in the Grande Place. He divests him- 
self of a part of his dress, which has bee^i spattered with mud 
during an arduous btit delightful ride over commons, roads, 
woods, 7iay, viountains . He ctirls his hair in the most kill- 
ing manner, afzd prepares to go out to dinner. The purple 
shadows are falling 07t the Grande Place,. and the roofs of the 
houses looking westward are in ajlatne. The clock of the old 
church strikes six. It is the appointed hour ' he gives one 
last glance at the looking-glass, and his last thozight is for — 
{see page 4 — last three words.') 

The dinner was exceedingly stupid, I very nearly fell 
asleep by the side of the lady of the house. It was all over 
by nine o'clock, half an hour before Payne comes to fetch you 
to bed, and I went to the gambling house and lost two napo- 
leons more. May this be a warning to all dissipated middle- 
aged persons. I have just got two new novels from the 
library by Mr. Fielding ; the one is Ainelia, the most de- 
lightful portrait of a woman that surely ever was painted ; 
the other is Joseph Andrews, which gives me no particular 
pleasure, for it is both coarse and careless, and the author 
makes an absurd brag of his twopenny learning, upon which 
he values himself evidently more than upon the best of his 
own qualities. Good night, you see I am writing to you as 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 21 

if I was talking. It is but ten o'clock, and yet it seems quite 
time here to go to bed. . 

I have got a letter from Annie, so clever, humourous and 
wise, that it is fit to be printed in a book. As for Miss Jin- 
gleby, I admire her pretty face and manners more than her 
singing, which is very nice, and just what a lady's should be, 
but I believe my heart is not engaged in that quarter. Why 
there is six times as much writing in my letter as in yours ! 
you ought to send me ever so many pages if bargains were 
equal between the male and female, but they never are. 
There is a prince here who is seventy-two years of age and 
wears frills to his trowsers. 

What if I were to pay my bill and go off this minute to 
the Rhine ? It would be better to see that than these gen- 
teel dandies here. I don't care about the beauties of the 
Rhine any more, but it is always pleasant and friendly. 
There is no reason why I should not sleep at Bonn to-night, 
looking out on the Rhine opposite Drachenfels — that is the 
best way of travelling surely, never to know where you are 
going until the moment and fate say "go." Who knows.'' 
By setting off at twelve o'clock, something may happen to 
alter the whole course of my life ? perhaps I may meet with 
some beautiful creature who . . , But then it is such a 
bore, packing up those shirts. I wonder whether anybody 
will write to m& paste restante at Homburg, near Frankfort- 
on-the-Maine ? And if you would kindly send a line to Annie 
at Captain Alexander's, Montpellier Road, Twickenham, tell- 
ing her to write to me there and not at Brussels, you would 
add, Madame, to the many obligations you have already con- 
ferred on 

Your most faithful servant, 

W. M. Thackeray. 

I have made a dreadful dumpy little letter, but an enve- 
lope would cost 1/2 more. I don't like to say anything dis- 



22 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

respectful of Dover, as you are going there, but it seemed 
awfully stupid. May I come and see you as I pass through ? 
A line at the Ship for me would not fail to bring me. 



21 August. [1848] Home. 

\To Mr. Brookfield.'] 
My dear old B. : 

I am just come back and execute my first vow, which was 
to tell you on landing that there is a certain bath near Minden, 
and six hours from Cologne by the railway (so that people 
may go all the way at their ease) where all sorts of complaints 
— including of course yours, all and several, are to be cured. 
The bath is Rehda, station Rehda. Dr. Sutro of the Lon- 
don German Hospital, knows all about it. I met an acquaint- 
ance just come thence, (a Mrs. Bracebridge and her mari) 
who told me of it. People are ground young there — a young 
physician has been cured of far gone tubercles in the lungs ; 
maladies of languor, rheumatism, liver complaints, all sorts of 
wonders are performed there, especially female wonders. 

Y not take Madame there, go, drink, bathe, and be cured ? 

Y not go there as well as anywhere else this summer season ? 

Y not come up and see this German doctor, or ask Bullar to 
write to him ? Do, my dear old fellow ; and I will vow a 
candle to honest Home's chapel if you are cured. Did the 
Vienna beer in which I drank your health, not do you any 
good ? God bless you, my dear Brookfield, and believe that 
I am always affectionately yours, 

W. M. T. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 23 

[1848.] 

My dear Mrs. Brookfield : 

Now that it is over and irremediable I am thinking with 
a sort of horror of a bad joke in the last number of Vanity 
Fair, which may perhaps annoy some body whom I wouldn't 
wish to displease. Amelia is represented as having a lady's 
maid, and the lady's maid's name is Payne. I laughed when 
I wrote it, and thought that it was good fun, but now, who 
knows whether you and Payne and everybody won't be an- 
gry, and in fine, I am in a great tremor. The only way will 
be, for you I fear to change Payne's name to her Christian 
one. Pray don't be angry if you are, and forgive me if I 
have offended. You know you are only a piece of Amelia, 
my mother is another half, my poor little wife — -y est pour 
beaucoup. 

and I am 

Yours most sincerely 

W. M. Thackeray. 

I hope you will write to say that you forgive me. 



October 1848. 
13 Young Street, Kensington. 
My Dear Lady Brookfield : 

I wrote you a letter three nights ago in the French Ian- 
guage, describing my disappointment at not having received 
any news of you. Those which I had from Mrs. Turpin were 
not good, and it would have been a pleasure to your humble 
servant to have had a line. Mr. William dined with the 
children good-naturedly on Sunday, when I was yet away at 
Brighton. 

My parents are not come yet, the old gentleman having 



24 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

had an attack of illness to which he is subject ; but they prom- 
ised to be with me on Tuesday, some day next week I hope. 
I virtuously refused three invitations by this day's post, and 
keep myself in readiness to pass the first two or three even- 
ings on my Papa's lap. 

That night I wrote to you the French letter, I wrote one 
to Miss Brandauer, the governess, warning her off. I didn't 
send either. I have a great mind to send yours though, it is 
rather funny, though I daresay with plenty of mistakes, and 
written by quite a different man, to the Englishman who is 
yours respectfully. A language I am sure would change a 
man ; so does a handwriting. I am sure if I wrote to you in 
this hand, and adopted it for a continuance, my disposition 
and sentiments would alter and all my views of life. I tried 
to copy, not now but the other day, a letter Miss Procter 
showed me from her uncle, in a commercial hand, and found 
myself after three pages quite an honest, regular, stupid, 
commercial man ; such is sensibility and the mimetic faculty 
in some singularly organized beings. How many people are 
you ? You are Dr. Packman's Mrs. B, and Mrs. Jackson's 
Mrs. B, and Ah ! you are my Mrs. B. you know you are now, 
and quite different to us all, and you are your sister's Mrs. B. 
and Miss Wynne's, and you make gentle fun of us all round 
to your private B. and offer us up to make him sport. You 
see I am making you out to be an Ogre's wife, and poor 
William the Ogre, to whom you serve us up cooked for din- 
ner. Well, stick a knife into me, here is my busam / I won't 
cry out, you poor Ogre's wife, I know you are good natured 
and soft-hearted au fond. 

I have been re-reading the Hoggarty Diamond this morn- 
ing ; upon my word and honour, if it doesn't make you cry, I 
shall have a mean opinion of you. It was written at a time 
of great affliction, when my heart was very soft and humble. 
Amen. Ich habe atcch viel geliebt. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 25 

Why shouldn't I start off this instant for the G. W. Sta- 
tion and come and shake hands, and ask your family for some 
dinner ; I should like it very much. Well, I am looking out 
of the window to see if the rain will stop, or give me an ex- 
cuse for not going to Hatton to the Chief Baron's. I won't 
go — that's a comfort. 

I am writing to William to ask him to come and dine to- 
morrow, we will drink your health if he comes. I should like 
to take another sheet and go on tittle-tattling, it drops off 
almost as fast as talking. I fancy you lying on the sofa, and 
the boy outside, walking up and down the oss. But I wont. 
To-morrow is Sunday. Good bye, dear lady, and believe 
me yours in the most friendly manner. 

W. M. T. 

\_Reply io an invitation to dinner, a few days later. 1 

Had I but ten minutes sooner 

Got your hospitable line, 
'Twould have been delight and honour 

With a gent like you to dine ; — 
But my word is passed to others, 

Fitz, he is engaged too : 
Agony my bosom smothers. 

As I write adieu, adieu ! 

[Lilies sent in a note of aJjoiit tins date.] 

I was making this doggerel instead of writing my Piijich 
this morning, shall I send it or no ? 

'Tis one o'clock, the boy from Punch is sitting in the pas- 
sage here. 

It used to be the hour of lunch at Portman Street, near Port- 
man Squeer. 



26 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

O ! stupid little printers' boy, I cannot write, my head is 

queer. 
And all my foolish brains employ in thinking of a lady 

dear. 
It was but yesterday, and on my honest word it seems a 

year — ■ 
As yet that person was not gone, as yet I saw that lady 

dear — 
She's left us now, my boy, and all this town, this life, is blank 

and drear. 
Thou printers' devil in the hall, didst ever see my lady 

dear. 
You'd understand, you little knave, I think, if you could only 

see her. 
Why now I look so glum and grave for losing of this lady 

dear. 
A lonely man I am in life, my business is to joke and 

jeer, 
A lonely man without a wife, God took from me a lady 

dear. 
A friend I had, and at his side, — the story dates from seven 

long year — 
One day I found a blushing bride, a tender lady kind and 

dear ! 
They took me in, they pitied me, they gave me kindly words 

and cheer, 
A kinder welcome who shall see, than yours, O, friend and 

lady dear ? 



The rest is wanting. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 27 

1848. 

\To Mr. Bwokfield.'] 

My dear Vieux : 

When I came home last night I found a beautiful opera 
ticket for this evening, — Jenny Lind, charming bally, box 
72. — I am going to dine at home with the children and 
shall go to the opera, and will leave your name down be- 
low. Do come and we will sit, we 2, and see the piece 
like 2 lords, and we can do the other part afterwards. I 
present my respectful compliments to Mrs. Brookfield and 
am yours, 

W. M. T. 

If you can come to dinner, there's a curry. 

Oct. 4th 1848 

Dear Mrs. Brookfield : 

If you would write me a line to say that you made a good 
journey and were pretty well, to Sir Thomas Cullam's, Hard- 
wick, Bury St. Edmunds, you would confer indeed a favour 
on yours respectfully. William dined here last night and 
was pretty cheerful. As I passed by Portman Street, after 
you were gone, just to take a look up at the windows, the 
usual boy started forward to take the horse. I laughed a 
sad laugh. I didn't want nobody to take the horse. It's a 
long time since you were away. The cab is at the door to 
take me to the railroad. Mrs. Procter was very kind and Ade- 
laide sympathised with me. I have just opened my desk, 
there are all the papers I had at Spa — Pendennis, unread 
since, and your letter. Good bye dear Mrs. Brookfield, al- 
ways yours, 

W. M. T. 



28 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

L' homme propose. Since this was wrote the author went 
to the railroad, found that he arrived a minute too late, and 
that there were no trains for 4^ hours. So I came back into 
town and saw the publishers, who begged and implored me 
so, not to go out pleasuring, &c., that I am going to Brighton 
instead of Bury. I looked in the map, I was thinking of 
coming to Weston - Super - Mare, — only it seemed such a 
hint. 



[Club] 
\ToMr. Brookfield-] 



October 1848. 



My dear Reverence : 

I take up the pen to congratulate you on the lovely 
weather, which must, with the company of those to whom you 
are attached, render your stay at Clevedon* so delightful. It 
snowed here this morning, since which there has been a fog 
succeeded by a drizzly rain. I have passed the day writing 
and trying to alter Pendennis, which is without any man- 
ner of doubt, awfully stupid ; the very best passages, which 
pleased the author only last week, looking hideously dull by 
the dull fog of this day. I pray, I praj', that it may be the 
weather. Will you say something for it at church next 
Sunday ? 

My old parents arrived last night, it was quite a sight to 
see the poor old mother with the children : and Bradbury, 
the printer, coming to dun me for Pendennis this morning. 
I slunk away from home, where writing is an utter impossi- 

* Clevedon Court, Somersetshire, often referred to in these letters, and already mentioned 
in the note p. 7, the home of Sir Charles Eltnn, Mrs. Brookfield's father. 

Clevedon Court dates from the reign of Edward II. (1307 to 1327), and though added to and 
altered in Elizabeth's time, the original plan can be clearly traced and much of the 14th Cen- 
tury work is untouched. The manor of Clevedon passed into the hands of the Eltons iu 1709, 
the present possessor being Sir Edmund Elton, 8th Baronet. 

The manor-house is the original of Castlewood in Esmond. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



29 



bility, and have been operating on it here. The real truth 
is now, that there is half an hour before dinner, and I don't 
know what to do, unless I write you a screed, to pass away 
the time. There are secret and selfish motives in the most 
seemingly generous actions of men. 

T'other day I went to Harley Street and saw the most 
beautiful pair of embroidered slippers, worked for a lady at 
whose feet . . . ; and I be^in more and more to think 









^'~3 



«vL [otl JJumXT ^.. 





, /» ^ « u/. /'x=&- 

«^ IU< -«4i,n*i< iWiu^ ^tiA luo ^ '«JttlUluuU<*<l<t^ 

Adelaide Procter, an uncommonly nice, dear, good girl. Old 
Dilke of the Atheneeum, vows that Procter and his wife, be- 
tween them, wrote yane Eyre, and when I protest ignorance, 
says, " Pooh ! you know who wrote it, you are the deepest 
rogue in England, &c." I wonder whether it can be true ? 
It is just possible, and then what a singular circumstance is 
the + fire of the two dedications.* O! Mon Dieti ! but I 
wish Pendenius were better. 

As if I had not enough to do, I have begun to blaze away 
in the Chronicle again : its an awful bribe — that five guineas 

* Jane Eyre to Thackeray, Vanity Fair to Barry Cornwall. 



30 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

an article. After I saw you on Sunday I did actually come 
back straight, on the omnibus. I have been to the Cider Cel- 
lars since again to hear the man sing about going to be 
hanged, I have had a headache afterwards, I have drawn, I 
have written, I have distracted my mind with healthy labor. 
Now wasn't this much better than plodding about with you 
in heavy boots amidst fields and woods ? But unless you 
come back, and as soon as my work is done, I thought a day 
or two would be pleasantly spent in your society, if the house 
of Clevedon admits of holding any more. 

Does Harry Hallam go out with dog and gun ? I should 
like to come and see him shoot, and in fact, get up field sports 
through him and others. Do you remark all that elaborate 
shading, the shot &c., ? All that has been done to while 
away the time until the dinner's ready, and upon my con- 
science I believe it is very near come. Yes, it is 6^. If Mrs. 
Parr is at Clevedon, present the respects of Mephistopheles, 
as also to any other persons with whom I am acquainted in 
your numerous and agreeable family circle. 



1848 

\_To Mr. Brookfield.'] 

Va diner chez ton classique ami, tant renomme pour le 
Grec. Je ne pourrais mieux faire que de passer la soiree 
avec une famille que j'ai negligee quelque peu — la mienne. 
Oui, Monsieur, dans les caresses innocentes de mes enfans 
cheris, dans la conversation edifiante de Monsieur mon beau- 
pere, je tacherai de me consoler de ta seconde infidelite. 
Samedi je ne puis venir : J'ai d'autres engagemens auxquels je 
ne veux pas manquer. Va. Sois heureux. Je te pardonne. 
Ton melancholique ami 

Chevalier de Titmarsh. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 31 

\\st November, 1848.] 

Dear Mrs. Brookfield: 

I was at Oxford by the time your dinner was over, and 
found eight or nine jovial gentlemen in black, feasting in the 
common room and drinking port wine solemnly. 
We had a great sitting of Port wine, and I daresay the even- 
ing was pleasant enough. They gave me a bed in College, 
— such a bed, I could not sleep. Yesterday, (for this is half 
past seven o'clock in the morning, would you believe it ?) a 
party of us drove in an Oxford Cart to Blenheim, where we saw 



some noble pictures, a portrait by Raphael, one of the great 
Raphaels of the world, — (Look, this is college paper, with 
beautiful lines already made) — A series of magnificent Ru- 
bens, one of which, representing himself walking in a garden 
with Mrs. Rubens and the baby, did one good to look at and 
remember ; and some very questionable Titians indeed — I 
mean on the score of authenticity, not of morals, though the 
subjects are taken from the loves of those extraordinary gods 
and goddesses, mentioned in Lempriere's Dictionary, — and 
we walked in the park, with much profit ; surveying the great 
copper-coloured trees, and the glum old bridge and pillar and 
Rosamond's Well ; and the queer, grand, ugly but magnifi- 
cent house, a piece of splendid barbarism, yet grand and im- 
posing somehow, like a chief raddled over with war-paint, and 
attired with careful hideousness. Well, I can't make out the 



32 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

simile on paper, though it's in my own mind pretty clear. 
What you would have liked best was the chapel dedicated 
to God and the Duke of Marlborough. The monument to 
the latter, occupies the whole place, almost, so that the for- 
mer is quite secondary. O ! what comes ? It was the scout 
who brought me your letter, and I am very much obliged to 
you for it. . . . 

I was very sorry indeed to hear that you have been ill — I 
was afraid the journey would agitate you, that was what I was 
thinking of as I was lying in the Oxford man's bed awake. 

.HiiZkaU. . ILj Wrt/i Urt«4 VlwM 1ta*tMui<( L\ I U^ 1<im»* lulUt 0*|»t<( 

WuU. U:*/ i^ - ^liL C4A.'v4t M Ru. Oi»«i3l JiMu^vWtM iUmh C(W4hA fc'Pw*^ 
A^k rt?u IwtU tlu ^tl«»l ^t«u. twtok? titi, IL/ Ua cj A »i.Ji|^ (totuW ►*"(«. 

After Blenheim I went to Magdalen Chapel to a High 
Mass there. O cherubim and seraphim, how you would like 
it! The chapel is the most sumptuous edifice, carved and 
frittered all over with the richest stone-work like the lace of 
a lady's boudoir. The windows are fitted with pictures of 
the saints painted in a grey colour, — real Catholic saints, 
male and female I mean, so that I wondered how they got 
there ; and this makes a sort of rich twilight in the church, 
which is lighted up by a multitude of wax candles in gold 
sconces, and you say your prayers in carved stalls wadded 
with velvet cushions. They have a full chorus of boys, some 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. Z}> 

two dozen I should think, who sing quite ravishingly. It is a 
sort of perfection of sensuous gratification ; children's voices 
charm me so, that they set all my sensibilities into a quiver ; 
do they you ? I am sure they do. These pretty brats with 
sweet innocent voices and white robes, sing quite celestially ; 
— no, not celestially, for I don't believe it is devotion at all, 
but a high delight out of which one comes, not impurified I 
hope, but with a thankful pleased gentle frame of mind. I 
suppose I have a great faculty of enjoyment. At Clevedon 
I had gratification in looking at trees, landscapes, effects of 
shine and shadow &c., which made that dear old Inspector 
who walked with me, wonder. Well there can be no harm in 
this I am sure. What a shame it is to go on bragging about 
what is after all sheer roaring good health for the most part ; 
and now I am going to breakfast. Good bye. I have been 
lionising the town ever since, and am come home quite tired. 
I have breakfasted here, lunched at Christ Church, seen Mer- 
ton, and All Souls with Norman Macdonald, where there is 
a beautiful library and a boar's head in the kitchen, over 
which it was good to see Norman's eyes gloating ; and it 
being All Saints' day, I am going to chapel here, where they 
have also a very good music I am told. 

Are you better ma'am ? I hope you are. On Friday I 
hope to have the pleasure to see you, and am till then, and 
even till Saturday, 

Yours, 

W. M. T. 



\2<jth Nov : 1S48.] 

My dear Lady : 

I am very much pained and shocked at the news brought 
at dinner to-day that poor dear Charles Buller is gone. 
Good God ! think about the poor mother surviving, and what 
3 



34 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

an anguish that must be ! If I were to die I cannot bear to 
think of my mother Hving' beyond me, as I daresay she will. 
But isn't it an awful, awful, sudden summons ? There go 
wit, fame, friendship, ambition, high repute ! Ah ! aunons 
nous bien. It seems to me that is the only thing we can 
carry away. When we go, let us have some who love us 
wherever we are. I send you this little line as I tell you and 
William most things. Good niorht. 



Tuesday. [Nov. 1848.] 
Good night my dear Madam. 

Since I came home from dining with Mr. Morier, I have 
been writing a letter to Mr. T. Carlyle and thinking about 
other things as well as the letter all the time ; and I have 
read over a letter I received to-day which apologizes for 
everything and whereof the tremulous author ceaselessly 
doubts and misgives. Who knows whether she is not con- 
verted by Joseph Bullar by this time. She is a sister of 
mine, and her name is God bless her. 

Wednesday. I was at work until seven o'clock ; not to 
very much purpose, but executing with great labour and 
hardship the days work. Then I went to dine with Dr. 
Hall, the crack doctor here, a literate man, a traveller, and 
otherwise a kind bigwig. After dinner we went to hear 
Mr. Sortain lecture, of whom you may perhaps have heard 
me speak, as a great, remarkable orator and preacher of 
the Lady Huntingdon Connexion. (The paper is so greasy 
that I am forced to try several pens and manners of hand- 
writing, but none will do.) We had a fine lecture with 
brilliant Irish metaphors and outbursts of rhetoric ad- 
dressed to an assembly of mechanics, shopboys and young 
women, who could not, and perhaps had best not, under- 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 35 

Stand that flashy speaker. It was about the origin of na- 
tions he spoke, one of those big themes on which a man 
may talk eternally and with a never ending outpouring of 
words ; and he talked magnificently, about the Arabs for 
the most part, and tried to prove that because the Arabs 
acknowledged their descent from Ishmael or Esau, there- 
fore the Old Testament History was true. But the Arabs 
may have had Esau for a father and yet the bears may not 
have eaten up the little children for quizzing Elisha's bald 
head. As I was writing to Carlyle last night, (I haven't sent 
the letter as usual, and shall not most likely,) Saint Stephen 
was pelted to death by Old Testaments, and Our Lord was 
killed like a felon by the law, which He came to repeal. I 
was thinking about Joseph Bullar's doctrine after I went to 
bed, founded on what I cannot but think a blasphemous as- 
ceticism, which has obtained in the world ever so long, and 
which is disposed to curse, hate and undervalue the world 
altogether. Why should we ? What we see here of this 
world is but an expression of God's will, so to speak — a beau- 
tiful earth and sky and sea — beautiful affections and sorrows, 
wonderful changes and developments of creation, suns rising, 
stars shining, birds singing, clouds and shadows changing 
and fading, people loving each other, smiling and crying, the 
multiplied phenomena of Nature, multiplied in fact and fancy, 
in Art and Science, in every way that a man's intellect or ed- 
ucation or imagination can be brought to bear. — And who is 
to say that we are to ignore all this, or not value them and 
love them, because there is another unknown world yet to 
come ? Why that unknown future world is but a manifesta- 
tion of God Almighty's will, and a development of Nature, 
neither more nor less than this in which we are, and an angel 
glorified or a sparrow on a gutter are equally parts of His 
creation. The light upon all the saints in Heaven is just 
as much and no more God's work, as the sun which shall 



36 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

shine to-morrow upon this infinitesimal speck of creation, 
and under which I shall read, please God, a letter firom my 
kindest Lady and fi-iend. About my future state I don't 
know; I leave it in tlie disposal of the awful Father, — but for 
to-day I thank God that I can love you, and that you yonder 
and others besides are thinking of me with a tender regard. 
Hallelujah may be greater in degree than this, but not in 
kind, and countless ages of stars may be blazing infinitely, 
but you and I have a right to rejoice and believe in our 
little part and to trust in to-day as in tomorrow. God bless 
my dear lady and her husband. I hope you are asleep now, 
and I must go too, for the candles are just winking out. 

Thursday. I am glad to see among the new inspectors, 
in the Gazette in this morning's papers, my old acquaintance 
Longueville Jones, an excellent, worthy, lively, accomplished 
fellow, whom I like the better because he flung up his fellow 
and tutorship at Cambridge in order to marry on nothing a 
year. We worked in Galignani's newspaper for ten francs a 
day, very cheerfully ten years ago, since when he has been a 
schoolmaster, taken pupils or bid for them, and battled man- 
fully with fortune. William will be sure to like him, I think, 
he is so honest, and cheerful. I have sent off my letter to 
Lady Ashburton this morning, ending with some pretty phrases 
about poor old C. B. whose fate affects me very much, so 
much that I feel as if I were making my will and getting ready 
to march too. Well ma'am, I have as good a right to pre- 
sentiments as you have, and to sickly fancies and desponden- 
cies ; but I should like to see before I die, and think of it 
daily more and more, the commencement of Jesus Christ's 
christianism in the world, where I am sure people may be 
made a hundred times happier than by its present forms, Ju- 
daism, asceticism, Bullarism. I wonder will He come ag-ain 
and tell it us. We are taught to be ashamed of our best feel- 
ings all our life. I don't want to blubber upon everybody's 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. $7 

shoulders ; but to have a good will for all, and a strong, very 
strong regard for a few, which I shall not be ashamed to own 
to them. . . . It is near upon three o'clock, and I am 
getting rather anxious about the post from Southampton 
via London. Why, if it doesn't come in, you won't get any 
letter to-morrow, no, nothing — and I made so sure. Well, I 
will try and go to work, it is only one more little drop. God 
bless you, dear lady. 

Friday. I have had a good morning's work and 
at two o'clock comes your letter ; dear friend, thank you. 
What a coward I was, I will go and walk and be happy for an 
hour, it is a grand frosty sunshine. Tomorrow morning early 
back to London. 



31 January, 1849 

Ship, Dover. 

Just before going away. 
How long is it since I have written to you in my natural 
handwriting ? . . . I am so far on my way to Paris, Meu- 
rice's Hotel, Rue de Rivoli. ... I had made up my 
mind to this great, I may say decisive step, when I came to 
see you on Saturday, before you went to Hither Green. I 
didn't go to the Sterling, as it was my last day, and due nat- 
urally to the family. We went to bed at half past nine o'clock. 
To-day I went round on a circuit of visits, including Turpin 
at your house. It seems as if I was going on an ever so long 
journey. Have you any presentiments ? I know some peo- 
ple who have. Thank you for your note of this morning, and 
my dear old William for his regard for me ; try you and con- 
serve the same. . . . There is a beautiful night, and I am 
going by Calais. Here, with a step on the steaming vessel, 
I am, affectionately yours, 

W. M. T. 



38 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

Meurice's Hotel, Rivoli Street, 

Paris. \Feb : 1849.] 
If you please, I am come home very tired and sleepy from 
the Opera, where my friend Rothschild gave me a place in his 
box. There was a grand ballet of which I could not under- 
stand one word, that is one pas, for not a word was spoken ; 
and I saw some celebrities in the place. The President, M. 
Lamartine, in a box near a handsome lady ; M. Marrast, in a 
box near a handsome lady ; there was one with a bouquet of 
lilies, or some sort of white flowers, so enormous that it looked 
like a bouquet in a pantomine, which was to turn into some- 
thing, or out of which a beautiful dancer was to spring. The 
house was crammed with well-dressed folks, and is sumptuous 
and splendid beyond measure. But O ! think of old Lamar- 
tine in a box by a handsome lady. Not any harm in the least, 
that I know of, only that the most venerable and grizzled 
bearded statesmen and philosophers find time from their busi- 
ness and political quandaries, to come and sigh and ogle a lit- 
tle at the side of ladies in boxes. 

I am undergoing the quarantine of family dinners with the 
most angelic patience. Yesterday being the first day, it was 
an old friend and leg of lamb. I graciously said to the old 
friend, " Why the deuce wouldn't you let me go and dine at 
a restaurant, don't you suppose I have leg of lamb at home ? " 
To-day with an aunt of mine, where we had mock turtle soup, 
by Heavens ! and I arranged with my other aunt for another 
dinner. I knew how it would be ; it must be ; and there's 
my cousin to come off yet, who says, "you must come and 
dine. I haven't a soul, but will give you a good Indian din- 
ner." I will make a paper in Punch about it, and exhale my 
griefs in print. I will tell you about my cousin when I get 
home, — when I get to Portman Street that is. . . . What 
brought me to this place ? Well I am glad I came, it will give 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 39 

me a subject for at least six weeks in Pimch, of which I was 
getting so weary that I thought I must have done with it. 

Are you better for a Httle country air ? Did you walk in 
that cheerful paddock where the cows are ? And did you 
have clothes enough to your bed ? I shall go to mine now, 
after writing this witty page, for I have been writing and spin- 
ning about all day, and am very tired and sleepy if you please. 
Bon Soir, Madame. 

Saturday. Though there is no use in writing, because 
there is no post, but que voulez vous, Madame ? O71 aime a 
dire icn petit bonjour a ses amis. I feel almost used to the 
place already and begin to be interested about the politics. 
Some say there's a revolution ready for today. The town is 
crammed with soldiers, and one has a curious feeling of inter- 
est and excitement, as in walking about on ice that is rather 
dangerous, and may tumble in at any moment. I had three 
newspapers for my breakfast, which my man,) it is rather 
grand having a laquais de place, but I can't do without him, 
and invent all sorts of pretexts to employ him) bought for five 
pence of your money. The mild papers say we have escaped 
an immense danger, a formidable plot has been crushed, and 
Paris would have been on fire and fury but for the timely dis- 
covery. The Red Republicans say, " Plot ! no such thing, 
the infernal tyrants at the head of affairs wish to find a pre- 
text for persecuting patriots, and the good and the brave are 
shut up in dungeons." Plot or no plot, which is it? I think 
I prefer to believe that there has been a direful conspiracy, 
and that we have escaped a tremendous danger. It makes 
one feel brave somehow, and as if one had some merit in 
overthrowing this rascally conspiracy. I am going to the 
Chamber directly. The secretary at the Embassy got me a 
ticket. The Embassy is wonderfully civil ; Lord Normanby 
is my dearest friend, he is going to take me to the President, 
— very likely to ask me to dinner. You would have thought 



40 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

I was an earl, I was received with so much of empressement 
by the ambassador. 

I hadn't been in Paris ten minutes, before I met ten people 
of my acquaintance. . . . As for Oh ! it was won- 
derful. We have not met for five years on account of a cool- 
ness, — that is a great heat, — resulting out of a dispute in 
which I was called to be umpire and gave judgment against 
her and her husband ; but we have met, it is forgotten. . . . 
Poor soul, she performed beautifully. "What, William, not 
the least changed, just the same as ever, in spite of all your 
fame ? " — Fame be hanged, thought I, pardonnez-moi le mot, 
— "just the same simple creature." O ! what a hypocrite I 
felt. I like her too; but she poor, poor soul — well, she did 
her comedy exceedingly well. I could only say, " My dear, 
you have grown older," that was the only bit of truth that 
passed, and she didn't like it. Quand vozis serez bien vieille, 
and I say to you, " my dear you are grown old " (only I shall 
not say " my dear," but something much more distant and re- 
spectful), I wonder whether you will like it. Now it is time 
to go to the Chamber, but it was far pleasanter to sit and 
chatter with Madame. 

I have been to see a piece of a piece called the Mys feres 
de Londres, since the above, and most tremendous mysteries 
they were indeed. It appears that there lived in London, 
three or four years ago, a young grandee of Spain and count 
of the Empire, the Marquis of Rio Santo, an Irishman by 
birth, who in order to free his native country from the intoler- 
able tyranny of England, imagined to organize an extraor- 
dinary conspiracy of the rogues and thieves of the metropolis, 
with whom some of the principal merchants, jewellers and 
physicians were concerned, who were to undermine and de- 
stroy somehow the infamous British power. The merchants 
were to forge and utter bank-notes, the jewellers to sell sham 
diamonds to the aristocracy, and so ruin them ; the physi- 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 4 1 

cians to murder suitable persons by their artful prescriptions, 
and the whole realm being plunged into anarchy by their 
manoeuvres, Ireland was to get its own in the midst of the 
squabble. This astonishing marquis being elected supreme 
chief of a secret society called the " Gentlemen of the Night," 
had his spies and retainers among the very highest classes of 
society. The police and the magistrature were corrupted, the 
very beef-eaters of the Queen contaminated, and you saw the 
evidence of such a conspiracy as would make your eyes open 
with terror. Who knows, madame, but perhaps some of the 
school inspectors themselves were bought over, and a Jesu- 
itic C k, an ambitious T , an unscrupulous B 

himself, may have been seduced to mislead our youth, and 
teach our very babes and sucklings a precocious perverseness ? 
This is getting to be so very like print that I shall copy 
it very likely,* all but the inspector part, for a periodical with 
which I am connected. Well, numbers of beautiful women 
were in love with the Marquis, or otherwise subjugated by 
him, and the most lovely and innocent of all, was employed 
to go to St. James' on a drawing-room day, and steal the dia- 
monds of Lady Brompton, the mistress of his grace Prince 
Demetri Tolstoi, the Russian ambassador, who had lent Lady 
Brompton the diamonds to sport at St. James', before he sent 
them off to his imperial master the Emperor of Russia, for 
whom the trifles in question were purchased. Lady Bromp- 
ton came to court having her train held up by her jockey ; 
Susanna came to court, her train likewise carried by her page, 
one or both of them were affides of the association of the 
"Gentlemen of the Night." The jockeys were changed, and 
Lady Brompton's jewels absolutely taken off her neck. So 
great was the rage of his grace Prince Demetri Tolstoi, that 
he threatened war should be declared by his emperor unless 
the brilliants were restored. I don't know what supervened, 

* He did reproduce part of it in Punch. 



42 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

for exhausted nature would bear no more. But you should 
have seen the Court of St. James', the beef-eaters, the Life 
Guards, the heralds at arms in their tabards of the sixteenth 
century, and the ushers announcing the great folks, as they 
went into the presence of the great sovereign. Lady Camp- 
bell, the Countess of Derby, and the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury were announced. O ! such an archbishop ! he had on 
a velvet trencher cap, and a dress something like our real 
and venerated prelates', and a rich curling wig, and he 
stopped and blessed the people, making crucificial signs 
on the stairs. The various lords went into the chamber 
in red robes and long flowing wigs. The wonder of the 
parody was, that it was so like and yet so absurdly un- 
like. O'Connell appeared, saluted as Daniel by the Count 
of Rio Santo, and announcing that he himself, though brisi 
par la lutte with the oppressors of his country, yet strongly 
reprobated anything like violent measures on the part of M. 
de Rio Santo and his fellow-patriots. The band played 
" God safe the Quin " in the most delightful absurd manner. 
The best of it is that these things, admirably as they tickled 
me, are only one degree more absurd than what they pretend 
to copy. The Archbishop had a wig only the other day, 
though not quite such a wig as this ; the chiefs of the police 
came in with oilskin hats, policemen's coats quite correct, and 
white tights and silk stockings, which made me laugh so, that 
the people in the stalls next me didn't know what I was at ! 
But the parody was in fine prodigious, and will afford matter 
to no end of penny-a-line speculation. . . . I sit in my 
little snug room and say God bless you and Mr. Williams. 
Here is near four pages of Pendennis. . . . 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 43 



April, loth. 1849. 
My Dear Persons. — After lying in bed until you had 
reached Clifton, exceeding melancholy from want of sleep, 
(induced by no romantic inward feeling but by other causes 
much more material and vulgar, viz., late smoking, etc., pre- 
vious nights) shall I tell you what it was dissipated my blue 
devils ? As I was going toward London the postman stopped 
me in the street and asked me if I would take my letters, 
which he handed to me : — one was an opera-box which I sent 
off to Mrs. M. for to morrow ; and one was a letter from an 
attorney demanding instantly ^112 for that abominable Irish 
Railway ; and in presence of this real calamity all the senti- 
mental ones vanished straight. I began to think how I must 
raise the money, — how I must go to work, nor be shilly-shal- 
lying any longer ; and with this real care staring me in the 
face I began to forget imaginary grievances and to think 
about going to work immediately ; and how for the next 3 
months I must screw and save in order to pay off the money. 
And this is the way, M'am, that the grim duties of the world 
push the soft feelings aside ; we've no time to be listening to 
their little meek petitions and tender home prattle in presence 
of the imperative Duty who says "Come, come, no more of 
this here, — get to work, Mister " — and so we go and join the 
working gang, behind which Necessity marches cracking his 
whip. This metaphor has not been worked so completely as 
it might be, but it means that I am resolved to go to work 
directly. So being determined on this I went off at once to 
the Star and Garter at Richmond and dined with those 2 
nice women and their husbands, viz, the Strutts and Romillys. 
We had every sort of luxury for dinner, and afterwards talked 
about Vanity Fair and Pendennis almost incessantly (though 
I declare I led away the conversation at least 10 times, but 



44 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

they would come back) so that the evening' was uncommonly 
pleasant. Once, twice, thrice, it came into my head — I won- 
der what those people at Clifton are doing; I would give 2/6 
to be with them ; but in the mean while it must be confessed, 
the Star and Garter is not bad. These ladies are handsome 
and good, and clever, and kind ; that solicitor general talks 
with great pleasantness ; and so I came home in a fly with 
an old gentleman who knew Sir S. Romilly, and we talked 
of the dark end of that history of a very good and wise 
man, and how he adored his wife (it was her death which 
caused his suicide), and how his son was equally attached to 
his own, of whose affection for her husband my informer gave 
many pretty instances. This conversation brought me to 
Kensington, where after thinking about the ;^i 12 a little, and 
a little more about some friends of mine whom I pray God to 
make happy, I fell into a great big sleep — from which I wake 
at this present 8 o'clock in the morning to say Bon jour, 
Madame. Where do you think this is wrote from ? From 
an attorney's office. Old Jewry. The Lord Mayor, the Sher- 
iffs, their coaches and footmen, in gold and silk stockings, 
have just passed in a splendid procession through the mud 
and pouring rain. I have been to the bankers to see how 
much money I have got. I have got ;^I20; I owe ^112; 
from _^ 1 20 take ^112, leaves 8 for the rest of the month. 
Isn't that pleasant ? Well, but I know how to raise some ; — 
the bankers say I may over-draw. Things isn't so bad. 

But now, (this is from the Garrick Club) now I say for 
the wonderful wonder of wonders. There is a chance for Mr. 
Williams such as he little looked for. EMMA is free. The 
great Catastrophe has happened — last night she and her 
mother fled from the infamous R. and took refuge at Mrs. 
Procter's where they had Adelaide's and Agnes' beds — who 
went and slept with Mr. and Mrs. Goldsmid next door. Mr. 
and Mrs. P. called at Kensington at 1 1 o'clock and brought 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 45 

the news.* R. had treated his wife infamously ; R. had as- 
sailed her with the most brutal language and outrages ; — that 

innocent woman Madame G , poor thing, who meddled 

with nothing and remained all day in her own garret so as to 
give no trouble, was flung out of the house by him — indeed 
only stayed in order to protect her daughter's life. The brute 
refused to allow the famous picture to be exhibited — in fact is 
a mad-man and a ruffian. Procter and I went off to make 
peace, and having heard R.'s story, I believe that he has been 
more wronged than they. 

The mother in-law is at the bottom of the mischief It 
was she who made the girl marry R., and, the marriage made, 
she declined leaving her daughter ; in fact, the poor devil, 
who has a bad temper, a foolish head — an immense vanity — 
has been victimised by the women and I pity him a great 
deal more than them. O ! what a comedy it would make ! 
but the separation I suppose is final, and it will be best for 
both parties. It will end no doubt in his having to pay a 4th 
of his income for the pleasure of being a month married to 
her, and she will be an angelic martyr, &c. I wonder whether 
you will give me a luncheon on Thursday. I might stop for 
2 hours on my way to Taunton and make you my hand-shake. 
This would be very nice. I thought of writing to Mrs. Elton 
and offering myself but I should like first to have the ap- 
proval of Mr. Williams, for after all, I am not an indifferent 
person but claim to rank as the Afft. brother of both of you. 

W. M. T. 

*Mrs. Procter, the wife of the well-known poet, Barry Cornwall, — herself a most accom- 
plished woman. — Even now at 84 years of age she retains the brilliant powers of conversation 
for which she was always celebrated. She was always a faithful friend to Mr. Thackeray, who 
had a sincere regard for her, Mrs. Procter was the mother of Adelaide, who so largely inher- 
ited her father's poetic powers. 



46 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



Fragment. 
[April, 1849.] 

Yesterday's wasn't a letter, you know, ma'am ; and I am 
so tired now of penmanship, that I don't think I shall be able 
to get through one. I wish you were on the sofa in Portman 
Street, and that I could go and lie down on the opposite one 
and fall asleep. Isn't that a polite wish ? Well, I am so beat 
that I ought to go to bed, and not inflict my yawns upon 
anyone ; but I can't begin snoring yet. I am waiting at the 
Club, till the printer's boy brings the proofs of No. 7,* which is 
all done ; there are two new women in it, not like anybody that 
you know or I know ; your favourite Major appears rather in an 
amiable light, I don't know whether it is good or bad. The 
latter probably. Well, it is done, that's a comfort. 

I am going to dine with Lady Davy again, but Friday 
shall be a happy Friday for me, and on Saturday, when you 
go to Oxbridge, I shall console myself by a grand dinner at 
the Royal Academy, if you please, to which they have invited 
me, on a great card like a tea-tray. That's a great honour, 
none but bishops, purchasers, and other big-wigs are asked. 
I daresay I shall have to make an impromptu speech. Shall 
I come to rehearse it to you on Friday ? I was going to send 
you a letter t'other day from a sculptor who wants to make 
my bust ; think of that ! . . . 

Here is wonderful Spring weather come, and the leaves 
are sprouting and all the birds chirping melojoyously. 

I daresay you are driving by Severn's Shore, now ; then 
you will listen after dinner to Captain Budd on the German 
flute ; then I daresay you will sing, after a great deal of blush- 
ing and hesitation. Is Mrs. Tidy jealous of you ? I dare- 

" Pendennis. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 47 

say she thinks you are overrated, and wonders what people 
see in you. So do I. 

Tomorrow me and Annie and Minnie are going to buy a 
new gownd for Granny, who wants it very much. Those old 
folks project a tour to Switzerland in the Summer, did I tell 
you ? And my mother cannot part with the children, who 
must go too. Where shall I go ? . 

Here comes the proof; — shall I send this letter now or 
wait till tomorrow, and have something to say? perhaps I 
shall see William tonight. I am going to Lady Lovelace's 
drum in Cumberland Place, hard-by Portman Street. 

No, I didn't go, but came home and fell asleep after din- 
ner, from nine o'clock till now, which it is eight o'clock in the 
morning, which I am writing in bed. You are very likely 
looking at the elms out of window by this time ; are they 
green yet ? Our medlar tree is. I was to have gone to the 
old Miss Berrys' too last night ; they were delighted at the 
allusion in Punch to them, in the same number in which you 
appear mending waistcoats. But Lord what a much better 
thing going to bed was ! and No. 7 completed with great 
throes and disquiet, only yesterday — seems to me ever so 
long ago — such a big sleep have I had ! . . . 

Adelaide Procter would hardly shake hands with me be- 
cause of my cowardly conduct in the R affair, and she 

told me that I hadn't been to call there since the 28th March 
last. They keep a journal of visitors ; fancy that ! I heard 

the R story from the G herself and the mother, and 

can only make out now that the husband is mad and odious. 
What they are to do is the difficulty ; he refuses to allow her 
a shilling ; her picture has been rejected at the Academy, 
and why I can't see, for there's no English academician's who 
could equal it, and she must paint to live. I shall give her 
my mother to do, I think. She looked exceedingly hand- 



48 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

some and interesting the other day ; pale and grief-stricken, 
with her enormous hair twirled round her head — and yet, and 
yet ! Will you kiss those little maids for me, I should like to 
hear their prattle through the door. I am going to kill Mrs. 
Pendennis presently, and have her ill in this number. Minnie 
says, " O ! papa, do make her well again ; she can have a 
regular doctor and be almost dead, and then will come a 
homeopathic physician who will make her well you know." 
It is very pretty to see her with her grandmother. Let us 
jump up now and go to breakfast with the children. 



June 12, 1849. 

My dear Lady : 

I send a hasty line to say that the good old aunt is still 
here, and was very glad to see me and another nephew of 
hers who came by the same train. It's a great comfort to my 
mother and to her, that my mother should be with her at 
this last day ; and she is preparing to go out of the world, 
in which she has been living very virtuously for more than 
eighty years, as calmly and happily as may be. I don't know 
how long she may remain, but my duty will be to stay on I 
suppose, until the end, which the doctor says is very near ; 
thoueh to see her in her bed, cheerful and talking;, one would 
fancy that her summons is not so near as those who are about 
her imagine. So I shall not see London or my dear friends 
in it for a few days very likely. Meanwhile will you write me 
a line here to tell me that you are easier of your pains, and 
just to give a comfort to your old brother Makepeace. 

I suppose I shall do a great deal of my month's work here. 
I have got a comfortable room at a little snug country inn, 
such as William would like. I am always thinking about go- 
ing to see Mrs. Fanshawe at Southampton, about No. 9 of 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 49 

Pendennis, and about all sorts of things. I went to see Mrs. 
Procter, to the City, and to do my business and pay my hor- 
rid railroad money. The banker's clerk stopped me and said, 
" I beg your pardon. Sir, but will you, if you please, tell me 
the meaning of ' eesthetics,' " which I was very much puzzled 
to tell — and here comes the boy to say that the note must go 
this instant to save the post, and so God bless Jane my sister 
and William my brother. 

Written from the Royal oak, Fareham. 



From the old shop, 21. 

[1849] 

Is it pouring with rain at Park Lodge, and the most dis- 
mal, wretched, cat and dog day ever seen ? O ! it's gloomy 
at 13 Young Street ! I have been labouring all day — draw- 
ing that is, and doing my plates, till my &s are ready to drop 
off for weariness. But they must not stop for yet a little 
while, and until I have said how do you do to my dear lady 
and the young folks at Southampton. I hardly had time to 
know I was gone, and that happy fortnight was over, till this 
morning. At the train, whom do you think I found? Miss 

G who says she is Blanche Amory, and I think she is 

Blanche Amory ; amiable at times, amusing, clever and de- 
praved. We talked and persiflated all the way to London, 
and the idea of her will help me to a good chapter, in which 
I will make Pendennis and Blanche play at being in love, 
such a wicked false humbugging London love, as two blase 
London people might act, and half deceive themselves that 
they were in earnest. That will complete the cycle of Mr. 
Pen's worldly experiences, and then we will make, or try and 
make, a good man of him. O ! me, we are wicked world- 
lings most of us, may God better us and cleanse us ! 
4 



50 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

I wonder whether ever again, I shall have such a happy- 
peaceful fortnight as that last ! How sunshiny the landscape 
remains in my mind, I hope for always ; and the smiles of 
dear children. ... I can hardly see as I write for the 
eye-water, but it isn't with grief but for the natural pathos of 
the thing. How happy your dear regard makes me, how it 
takes off the solitude and eases it ; may it continue, pray 
God, till your head is white as mine, and our children have 
children of their own. Instead of being unhappy because 
that delightful holiday is over or all but over, I intend that 
the thoughts of it should serve to make me only the more 
cheerful and help me, please God, to do my duty better. All 
such pleasures ought to brace and strengthen one against 
work days, and lo, here they are. I hope you will be im- 
mensely punctual at breakfast and dinner, and do all your 
business of life with cheerfulness and briskness, after the ex- 
ample of holy Philip Neri, whom you wot of; that is your 
duty Madame, and mine is to " pursue my high calling ; " 
and so I go back to it with a full grateful heart, and say God 
bless all. If it hadn't been pouring-o'-rain so, I think I should 
have gone off to His Reverence at Brighton ; so I send him 
my very best regards, and a whole box full of kisses to the 
children. Farewell. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 51 



■|i Yn^ !; V-.>«jrn, . ^*-»^ \r . \»i,y 



Note from Thackeray (actual size). 



\To Mr. Brookfield.l 

25 April 1849. 

My dear Vieux : 

Will ye dine with me on Friday at the G ? My work will 
be just over on that day, and bedad, we'll make a night of it, 
and go to the play. On Thursday I shall dine here and Sun- 
day most probbly, and shall we go to Richmond on Sunday ? 
Make your game and send me word. 

Ever yours, 

W. M. T. 

P. S. Having occasion to write to a man in Bloomsbury 
Place, and to Lady Davy, I mixed up the addresses and am 
too mean to throw away the envelope, so give you the ben- 
efit of the same. 



52 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



[1849.] 

Monday. 

My letter to-day, dear lady, must needs be a very short 
one, for the post goes in half an hour, and I've been occupied 
all day with my own business and other people's. At three 
o'clock, just as I was in full work comes a letter from a pro- 
tegde of my mother's, a certain Madame de B. informing me 
that she, Madame de B., had it in view to commit suicide im- 
mediately, unless she could be in some measure relieved (or 
releived, which is it ?) from her present difficulties. So I 
have had to post off to this Madame de B., whom I expected 
to find starving, and instead met a woman a great deal fatter 
than the most full-fed person need be, and having just had a 
good dinner ; but that didn't prevent her, the confounded old 
fiend, from abusing the woman who fed her and was eood to 
her, from spoiling the half of a day's work for me, and taking 
me of a fool's errand. I was quite angry, instead of a corpse 
perhaps, to find a fat and voluble person who had no more 
idea of hanging herself to the bed-post than you or I have. 
However, I got a character in making Madame de B's ac- 
quaintance, and some day she will turn up in that inevitable 
repertory of all one's thoughts and experiences qjic votis 
saves. 

Thence, as it was near, I went to see a sick poetess, who 

is pining away for love of S M , that you have heard 

of, and who literally has been brought near to the grave 
by that amorous malady. She is very interesting somehow, 
ghastly pale and thin, recumbent on a sofa, and speaking 
scarcely above her breath. I wonder though after all, was it 
the love, or was it the bronchitis, or was it the chest or the 
spine that was affected ? All I know is that Don Saville may 
have made love to her once, but has tried his hand in other 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 53 

quarters since, and you know one doesn't think the worse of 
a man of honour for cheating in affairs of the heart. The 
numbers that I myself have — fiddledee, this is nonsense. 

The Reform banquet was very splendid and dull enough. 
A bad dinner and bad wine, and pretty fair speaking ; my 
friend fat James being among not the least best of the speak- 
ers. They all speak in a kind of sing-song or chant, without 
which I suppose it is impossible for the orator nowadays to 
pitch his sentences, and Madam, you are aware that the Ro- 
mans had a pipe when they spoke ; not a pipe such as your 
husband uses, but a pitch-pipe. I wanted to have gone to 
smoke a last calumet at poor dear old Portman Street, but 
our speechifiers did not stop till 12.30 and not then ; but the 
best of them had fired off by that time and I came off. Yes- 
terday, after devoting the morning to composition, I went 
and called on the Rev. W. H. Brookfield, whom I found very 
busy packing up and wishing me at Jericho, so I went to the 
Miss Leslies' and Captn. Morgan, the American Captain ; 
and then to dine at Hampstead, where the good natured 
folks took in me and the two young ones. Finally, in the 
evening to Lady Tennent's, where I have been most remiss 
in visit-paying, for I like her, and she was a kind old friend 
to me. To-day I am going to dine with the Dowager Duch- 
ess of Bedford, afterwards to Mrs. Procter's, afterwards to 
Lady Granville's. Here you have your humble servant's 
journal, and you see his time is pretty well occupied. I have 
had a good deal of the children too, and am getting on apace 
with my number, though I don't like it. Shall I send you 
some of it? No, I won't, though if I do a very good piece 
indeed, perhaps I may. I think I shall go to Brighton ; I 
think you will be away six weeks at least ; and I hope to 
hear that my dear lady is well and that she remembers her 
affectionate old friend 

Makepeace. 



54 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



1849. 

\To Mr. Brookfield'] 
My dear Vieux : 

A long walk and stroll in Richmond Park yesterday, a 
blue followed by a black this morning, have left me calmer, 
exhausted, but melancholy. I shall dine at the Garrick at 
seven o'clock or so, and go to the Lyceum afterwards. 
Come into town if you get this in time and let us go. . . . 

Get David Copperfield, by Jingo it's beautiful ; it beats 
the yellow chap of this month hollow. 

W. M. T. 

Will you send me two cigars per bearer ? I am working 
with three pipe-smoking Frenchmen, and I can't smoke their 
abominations, and I hope Madame is pretty well after her 
triumphant ddbut last night. 



[1849] 

Reform Club, Tuesday — 

My dear Lady : 

I write only a word and in the greatest hurry to say I am 
very well in health. I've been at work, and have written 
somewhat and done my two plates, which only took two 
hours ; and now that they're done, I feel that I want so to 
come back to Ryde, I must get a rope or a chain to bind my- 
self down to my desk here.* All the world is out of town — • 
Mrs. Procter not at home, perhaps to my visit, — dear kind 

* Mr. Thackeray had been spending a few days at Ryde with my brother and his wife, 
where I was staying. 



LETTERS OE THACKERAY. 55 

Kate Perry whom indeed I like with all my heart just pack- 
ing up to go to Brighton. My Chesterfield loves flown away 
to Tunbridge Wells, and so I am alone and miss you. I sent 
your package off to Harry this morning. The lucky rogue ! 
I suppose he will see Madam and all those kind Ryde folks. 
Tell them if you please how very grateful I am to them for 
their goodnature. I can't help fancying them relations rather 
than friends. 

I got some dinner ; at 10^ o'clock I drank to the health 
of Madame Ma bonne soeur ; — I hadn't the courage to go 
home till past midnight, when all the servants got out of bed 
to let me in. There was such a heap of letters ! I send you 
a couple which may amuse you. Send me Colonel Fergu- 
son's back, as I must answer him ; but I don't think I shall 
be able to get away in August to Scotland. Who can the 
excoriated female be who imparts her anguish to me ? what 
raw wound has the whip of the satirist been touching ? As I 
was sitting with my Frenchmen at 3 o'clock, I thought to 
myself O Lor ! Mr. Makepeace, how much better you were 
off yesterday ! 

Good bye dear lady, God bless every kind person of all 
those who love you. — I feel here, you must know, just as I 
used five and twenty years ago at school, the day after com- 
ing back from the holidays. If you have nothing to say to 
me, pray write ; if you have something, of course you will. 
Good bye, shake hands, I am always my dear lady's sincere 

W. M. T. 



56 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



[1849] 

Last night was a dinner at Spencer Cowper's, the man 
who used to be called the fortunate youth some few years 
back, when ;^io,ooo, or perhaps _;/^20,ooo a year, was sud- 
denly left him by a distant relative, and when he was without 
a guinea in the world. It was a Sybaritic repast, in a mag- 
nificent apartment, and we were all of us young voluptuaries 
of fashion. There were portraits of Louis Ouatorze ladies 
round the room (I was going to say salle a manger, but room 
after all is as good a word). We sat in the comfortablest 
arm chairs, and valets went round every instant filling our 
glasses with the most exquisite liquors. The glasses were 
as big as at Kinglake's dinner — do you remember Kinglake's 
feast, Ma'am ? Then we adjourned into wadded drawing 
rooms, all over sofas and lighted with a hundred candles, 
where smoking was practised, and we enjoyed a pleasant and 
lively conversation, carried on in the 2 languages of which 
we young dogs are perfect masters. As I came away at mid- 
night I saw C.'s carriage lamps blazing in the courtyard, keep- 
ing watch until the fortunate youth should come out to pay a 
visit to some Becky no doubt. The young men were clever, 
very frank and gentlemenlike ; one, rather well-read ; quite 
as pleasant companions as one deserves to meet, and as for 
your humble servant, he saw a chapter or two of Pendennis 
in some of them. 

I am going with M. to-day, to see Alexis the sonnambu- 
list. She came yesterday evening and talked to me for two 
hours before dinner. I astonished her by finding out her 
secrets by some of those hits que vous saves — Look, here is 
a bit of paper with a note to her actually commenced in reply 
to my dearest William, — but I couldn't get out my dearest M. 
in return, and stopped at " My " — . But I like her better 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 57 

than I did, — and begin to make allowances for a woman of 
great talents married to a stupid, generous, obstinate, devoted 
heavy dragoon, thirty years her senior. My dear old mother 
with her imperial manner tried to take the command of both 
of them, and was always anxious to make them understand 
that I was the divinest creature in the world, whose shoe- 
strings neither of them was fit to tie. Hence bickerings, ha- 
treds, secret jealousies and open revolt, and I can fancy them 
both worked up to a pitch of hatred of me, that my success 
in life must have rendered only more bitter. 

But about Alexis — this wonder of wonders reads letters 
and tells you their contents and the names of their authors 
without even thinking of opening the seal ; and I want you 
very much, if you please, and instantly on receipt of this to 
send me a bit of your hair that I may have a consultation on 
it. Mind you, I don't want it for myself; I pledge you my 
word I'll burn it, or give you back every single hair, 
but do if you please, mum, gratify my curiosity in this matter 
and consult the soothsayer regarding you. M. showed him 
letters, and vows he is right in every particular. And as I 
sha'n't be very long here I propose by return of post, for this 
favour. 

Are you going to dine at Lansdowne House on Saturday .■' 
The post is come in and brought me an invitation, and a let- 
ter from my Ma, and my daughters, but none from my sister. 
Are you ill again, dear lady .'' Don't be ill, God bless you — 
good bye. I shall write again if you please, but I sha'n't be 
long before I come. Don't be ill, I am afraid you are. You 
hav'n't been to Kensington. My love to Mr. Williams, fare- 
well, and write tomorrow. 



58 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



1849. 

[To Mr. Bwokfieldl 

My dear Vieux: 

If you come home in any decent time I wish you would 
go off to poor Mrs. Crowe at Hampstead.* A letter has just 
come, from Eugenie, who describes the poor lady as low, 
wretched, and hysterical — she may drop. Now a word or 
two of kindness from a black coat might make all the differ- 
ence to her, and who so able to administer as your reverence ? 
I am going out myself to laugh, talk and to the best of my 
ability, soothe and cheer her ; but the professional man is 
the best, depend upon it, and I wish you would stretch a 
point in order to see her. 

Yours till this evening. 



[1849] 
[To Mr. Brookfield] 

My dear Vieux : 

I wish you would go and call upon Lady Ashburton. 
Twice Ashburton has told me that she wants to make your 
acquaintance, and twice remarked that it would be but an act 
of politeness in you to call on a lady in distress, who wants 
your services. Both times I have said that you are uncom- 
monly proud and shy, and last night told him he had best call 
on you, which he said he should hasten to do. But surely 
you might stretch a leg over the barrier when there's a lady 
actually beckoning to you to come over, and such an uncom- 

* Mrs. Crowe, mother of Eyre Crowe, the well-known artist, who went with Mr. Thackeray 
to America on his first tour there, and who was always one of his most faithful friends. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 59 

monly good dinner laid on the other side. There was a va- 
cant place yesterday, as you might have had, and such a 
company of jolly dogs, St. Davids, Hallam sen'r and ever so 
many more of our set. Do come if you can, and believe me 
to be yours, 

A. Pendennis, Major H.P. 



To the Rev. W. H. Brookfield. 

Monday. 
My dear Vieux : 

A. Sterling * dines with me at the Garrick at seven on 
Friday ; I hope you will come too. And on Friday the 21st. 
June, Mr. Thackeray requests the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. 
Brookfield's and Mr. Henry Hallam's company at dinner at 
7.30 to meet Sir Alexander and Lady Duff Gordon, Sir 
Henry and Lady De Bathe &c. &c. I hope you will both 
come to this, please ; you ought to acknowledge the kind- 
ness of the key,t and those kind Gordons will like to see 
you. 

About 1849. 

My dear lady : 

A note comes asking me to dine tomorrow with Mr. Ben- 
edict,X close by you at No. 2 Manchester Square, to meet 
Mdme Jenny Lind. I reply that a lady is coming to dine 
with my mother, whom I must of course meet, but that I hope 
Mrs. B. will allow me to come to her in the evening with my 
mamma and this lady under each arm, and I promise they will 

* a. Sterling, brother to John Sterhng of whom Carlyle wrote the life, 
t The key of the Portman Square Garden which was kindly lent to me. 
\ Mr. Benedict, the late lamented and kindly musician, Sir Julius Benedict. 



6o LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

look and behave well. Now suppose Mrs. S. and I were to 
come and dine with you, or my mother alone, if you liked to 
have her better ; yes, that would be best, and I could come 
at nine o'clock and accompany you to the Swedish nightin- 
gale. 

I am as usual 

Your obedient servant 

Clarence Bulbul. 



[1849] 

My dear lady : 

It was begun, "dear Sir," to somebody of the other sex. 
I think it is just possible, that Mr. William on returning to- 
day, may like to have his wife to himself, and that the ap- 
pearance of my eternal countenance might be a bore, hence 
I stay away. 

And about tomorrow, the birthday of my now motherless 
daughter, Miss Annie. Will you come out, — -being as I must 
consider you, if you please, the children's aunt, — at two, or 
three o'clk, or so, and take innocent pleasures with them, 
such as the Coliseum and the Zoological Gardens ? and are 
you free so as to give them some dinner or tea in the even- 
ing? I dine out myself at 8 o'clock, and should like them to 
share innocent pleasures with their relation. 

My mother writes from Fareham that the old great aunt 
is better, and will not depart probably yet awhile. 

And now concerning Monday. You two must please re- 
member that you are engaged to this house at seven. I 
have written to remind the Scotts, to ask the Pollocks, and 
the Carlyles are coming. 

And now with regard to this evening, I dine in West- 
bourne Terrace, then I must go to Marshall's in Eaton Square 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 6 1 

and then to Mrs. Sartoris, where I don't expect to see you ; 
but if a gentleman of the name of W. H. B. should have a 
mind to come, we might &c. &c. 

Madam, I hope you have had a pleasant walk on Clap- 
ham's breezy common, and that you are pretty well. I myself 
was very quiet, went with the children to Hampstead, and 
then to the Opera, and only one party. I am writing at the 
Reform Club, until four o'clock, when I have an engagement 
with O ! such a charming person, and tete-a-tete too. Well, 
it's with the dentist's arm chair, but I should like to have the 
above queries satisfactorily answered, and am always Ma- 
dam's 

W. M. T. 



13 July 1849 

From Brighton. 

Now for to go to begin that long letter which I have 
a right to send you, after keeping silence, or the next 
thing to silence, for a whole week. As I have nothing to 
tell about, it is the more likely to be longer and funnier — 
no, not funnier, for I believe I am generally most funny 
when I am most melancholy, — and who can be melancholy 
with such air, ocean and sunshine ? not if I were going to 
be hanged tomorrow could I afford to be anything but ex- 
ceedingly lazy, hungry and comfortable. Why is a day's 
Brighton the best of doctors ? I don't mean this for a riddle, 
but I got up hungry, and have been yawning in the sun like 
a fat lazzarone, with great happiness all day. I have got a 
window with a magnificent prospect, a fresh sea breeze blow- 
ing in, such a blue sea yonder as can scarcely be beat by the 
Naples or the Mediterranean blue ; and have passed the 
main part of the morning reading O ! such a stupid book, 



62 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

Fanny Hervey, the new intime novel of the season, as good 
as Miss Austen's people say. In two hours I am engaged 
to dinner in London. Well, I have broken with that place 
thank Heaven, for a little, and shall only go back to do my 
plates and to come away. Whither to go ? I have a fancy 
that Ryde in the Isle of Wight would be as nice a place as 
any for idling, for sketching, for dawdling, and getting health ; 
but the Rev. Mr. Brookfield must determine this for me, and 
I look to see him here in a day or two. 

I wish they had called me sooner to dinner ; 
there's only one man staying at this house, and he asked me 
at breakfast in a piteous tone, to let him dine with me. If 
we were two, he said, the rules of the club would allow us a 
joint, — as if this luxury would tempt the voluptuary who pens 
these lines. He has come down here suffering from indiges- 
tion, and with a fatal dying look, which I have seen in one 
or two people before ; he rushed wildly upon the joint and 
devoured it with famished eagerness. He said he had been 
curate of St. James, Westminster, — whereupon I asked if he 
knew my friend Brookfield. "My successor," says he, "a 
very able man, very good fellow, married a very nice woman." 
Upon my word he said all this, and of course it was not my 
business to contradict him. He said, no, he didn't say, but 
the waiter said, without my asking, that his name was Mr. 
Palmer ; and then he asked if Brookfield had any children, 
so I said I believed not, and began to ask about his own chil- 
dren. How queer it seemed to be talking in this way, and 
what 2^d incidents to tell ; but there are no others ; nobody 
is here. The paper this morning announced the death of 
dear old Horace Smith,* that good serene old man, who 
went out of the world in charity with all in it, and having 



'* Horace Smith and his brother were the authors of " Rejected Addresses." The two 
Miss Horace Smiths are still living at Brighton, where Mr. Thackeray speaks of meeting them 
after his illness. Their society is still much sought after. 













--r^. 





y^.^^^f- 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



63 



shown through his life, as far as I knew it, quite a delightful 
love of God's works and creatures, — a true, loyal, Christian 
man. So was Morier, of a different order, but possessing 
that precious natural quality of love, which is awarded to 
some lucky minds such as these, Charles Lambs, and one or 
two more in our trade ; to many amongst the parsons I 
think ; to a friend of yours by the name of Makepeace, per- 
haps, but not unalloyed to this one. O ! God purify it, and 
make my heart clean. After dinner and a drive on the sea 
shore, I came home to an evening's reading which took 
place as follows — 



oui' - /■' C^ri. S^MjuIn^ if t ouA. iujtte uu^ iuj^^iluuA. - t^r^fit. <tmn<i OMia- 
A/MM, Av Iti4 iui, Slun^ I uuuf Umu£- h au<{$DcX.ttat Zui^ivm <^ C^ 



Ufiu. AXmk JLuvu auA, 




It is always so with my good intentions, and I woke 
about dawn, and found it was quite time to go to bed. But 
the solitude and idleness I think is both cheerful and whole- 
I've a mind to stay on here, and begin to hope I 



some. 



shall write a stronger number of Pendennis than some of the 
last ones have been. The Clevedon plan was abandoned 
before I came away ; some place in S. Wales, I forget what, 



64 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

was fixed upon by the old folks. I would go with them, but 
one has neither the advantage of society nor of being alone, 
and it is best to follow my own ways. What a flood of ego- 
tism is being poured out on you ! Well, I do think of some 
other people in the world besides myself. 



1849. 

Brighton, Saturday — Monday. 

Thank you for your letter, dear Mrs. Brookfield ; it made 
this gay place look twice as gay yesterday when I got it. 
Last night when I had come home to work, two men spied 
a light in my room, and came in and began smoking. They 
talked about racing and the odds all the time. One of them 
I am happy to say is a lord, and the other a Brighton buck. 
When they were gone (and indeed I listened to them with a 
great deal of pleasure for I like to hear people of all sorts,) 
at mid-night, and in the quiet I read your letter over again, 
and one from Miss Annie, and from my dear old mother, 
who is to come on the 12th. and whose heart is yearning 
for her children. I must be at home to receive her, and some 
days, ten or so at least, to make her comfortable, so with 
many thanks for Mrs. Elton's invitation, I must decline it for 
the present if you please. You may be sure I went the very 
first thing to Virginia and her sisters, who were very kind to 
me, and I think are very fond of me, and their talk and 
beauty consoled me, for my heart was very sore and I was 
ill and out of spirits. A change, a fine air, a wonderful sun- 
shine and moonlight, and a great Spectacle of happy people 
perpetually rolling by, has done me all the good in the world. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 65 

and then one of the Miss Smiths * told me a story which is 
the very thing for the beginning of Pendennis, which is actu- 
ally begun and in progress. This is a comical beginning 
rather. The other, which I didn't like was sentimental, and 
will yet come in very well after the startling comical business 
has been played off. See how beautifully I have put stops to 
the last sentence, and crossed the t's and dotted the i's ! It 
was written four hours ago, before dinner, before Jullien's 
concert, before a walk by the sea shore. — I have been think- 
ing what a number of ladies, and gentlemen too, live like you 
just now, in a smart papered rooms, with rats gnawing 
behind the wainscot ; Be hanged to the rats, but they are a 
sort of company. You must have a poker ready, and if 
the rats come out, bang! beat them on the head. This is 
an allegory, why, it would work up into a little moral 
poem if you chose to write it. Jullien was splendid in his 
white waistcoat, and played famous easy music which any- 
body may comprehend and like. There was a delightful 
cornet a piston, (mark the accent on the a). The fact is I 
am thinking about something else all the while and am 
very tired and weary, but I thought I would like to say 
good night to you, and what news shall I give you just for 
the last? Well then. Miss Virginia is gone away, not to 
come back while I am here. Good night, ma'am, if you 
please. 

Being entirely occupied with my two new friends, 
Mrs. Pendennis and her son Mr. Arthur Pendennis, I got up 
very early again this morning, and was with them for more 
than two hours before breakfast. He is a very good natured 

* The Miss Smiths here referred to are the daughters of the late Horace Smith, author of 
" Rejected Addresses." 

The Virginia here mentioned was the beautiful Miss Pattle, then in her earliest youth, and 
who is now the widow of the late Earl Somers. In those days she lived with her sister and her 
husband, Mr. and Mrs. Thoby Prinsep at Little Holland House, Kensington, where they 
gathered around them a charming society and where Mr. Thackeray was ever welcomed, 
almost as one of the family. Their garden parties will ever be remembered. 

5 



66 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

generous young fellow, and I begin to like him considerably. 
I wonder whether he is interesting to me from selfish reasons 
and because I fancy we resemble each other in many points, 
and whether I can get the public to like him too ? We had 
the most magnificent sunshine Sunday, and I passed the 
evening very rationally with Mr. Fonblanque and Mr. Shell, 
a great orator of whom perhaps you have heard, at present 
lying here afflicted with gout, and with such an Irish wife. 
Never was a truer saying than that those people are for- 
eigners. They have neither English notions, manners, nor 
morals. I mean what is right and natural to them, is absurd 
and unreasonable to us. It was as good as Mrs. O'Dowd 
to hear Mrs. Shell interrupt her Richard and give her opin- 
ions on the state of Ireland, to those two great, hard-headed, 
keen, accomplished men of the world. Richard listened to 
her foolishness with admirable forbearance and good humour. 
I am afraid I don't respect your sex enough, though. Yes I 
do, when they are occupied with loving and sentiment rather 
than with other business of life. 

I had a mind to send you a weekly paper containing con- 
temptuous remarks regarding an author of your acquaintance. 
I don't know who this critic is, but he always has a shot at 
me once a month, and I bet a guinea he is an Irishman. 

So we have got the cholera. Are you looking out for a 
visit ? Did you try the Stethoscope, and after listening at 
your chest, did it say that your lungs were sore? 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 6j 

Fragment. 

[1849.] 

I am going to dine at the Berrys to-day and to Lady Ash- 
burton's at night. I dined at home three days running, think 
of that. This is my news, it isn't much is it ? I have written 
a wicked number of Peiidemiis, but Hke it rather, it has a 
good moral, I believe, although to some it may appear 
naughty. Big Higgins * who dined with me yesterday of- 
fered me, what do you think ? " If" says he, " you are tired 
and want to lie fallow for a year, come to me for the money. 
I have much more than I want." Wasn't it kind ? I like to 
hear and to tell of kind things. 



Wednesday. 1849. 
What have I been doing since these many days ? I 
hardly know. I have written such a stupid number of Pende7i- 
nis in consequence of not seeing you, that I shall be ruined 
if you are to stay away much longer. . . . Has William 
written to you about our trip to Hampstead on Sunday ? It 
was very pleasant. We went first to St. Mark's church, 
where I always thought you went, but where the pew opener 
had never heard of such a person as Mrs. J. O. B. ; and hav- 
ing heard a jolly and perfectly stupid sermon, walked over 
Primrose Hill to the Crowes', where His Reverence gave Mrs. 
Crowe half an hour's private talk, whilst I was talking under 
the blossoming apple tree about newspapers to Monsieur 
Crowe. Well, Mrs. Crowe was delighted with William and 
his manner of discoorsing her ; and indeed though I say it 

* Big Higgins — the well-known writer under the signature of Jacob Omnium. 



68 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

that shouldn't, from what he said afterwards, and from what 
we have often talked over pipes in private, that is a pious 
and kind soul. I mean his, and calculated to soothe and 
comfort and appreciate and elevate so to speak out of de- 
spair, many a soul that your more tremendous, rigorous di- 
vines would leave on the way side, where sin, that robber, 
had left them half killed. I will have a Samaritan parson 
when I fall among thieves. You, dear lady, may send for an 
ascetic if you like ; what is he to find wrong in you ? 

I have talked to my mother about her going to Paris with 
the children, she is very much pleased at the notion, and it 
won't be very lonely to me. I shall be alone for some months 
at any rate, and vow and swear I'll save money. 
Have you read Dickens ? O ! it is charming ! brave Dickens ! 
It has some of his very prettiest touches — those inimita- 
ble Dickens touches which make such a great man of him ; 
and the reading of the book has done another author a great 
deal of good. In the first place it pleases the other author 
to see that Dickens, who has long left off alluding to the A.'s 
works, has been copying the O. A., and greatly simplifying 
his style, and overcoming the use of fine words. By this the 
public will be the gainer and David Copperfield will be im- 
proved by taking a lesson from Vanity Fair. Secondly it 
has put me upon my metal ; for ah ! Madame, all the metal 
was out of me and I have been dreadfully and curiously cast 
down this month past. I say, secondly, it has put me on my 
metal and made me feel I must do something ; that I have 
fame and name and family to support. 

I have just come away from a dismal sight ; Gore House 
full of snobs looking at the furniture. Foul Jews ; odious 
bombazine women, who drove up in mysterious flys which 
they had hired, the wretches, to be fined, so as to come in 
state to a fashionable lounge ; brutes keeping their hats on 
in the kind old drawing room, — I longed to knock some of 




€!• 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 69 

them off, and say " Sir, be civil in a lady's room." . 
There was one of the servants there, not a powdered one, 
but a butler, a whatdyoucallit. My heart melted towards him 
and I gave him a pound, Ah ! it was a strange, sad picture 
of Vanity Fair. My mind is all boiling up with it ; indeed, 
it is in a queer state. ... I give my best remembrances 
to all at Clevedon Court. 



[30th June 1849.] 

My DEAR lady: 

I have 2 opera boxes for tonight — a pit box — for the Hu- 
guenots at Covent Garden — where there is no ballet, and 
where you might sit and see this grand opera in great ease 
and quiet. Will you please to say if you will have it and I 
will send or bring it. 

Or if Miss Hallam dines with you, may I come afterwards 
to tea ? Say yes or no ; I sha'n't be offended, only best 
pleased of course with yes. I am engaged on Monday 
Tuesday and Wednesday nights, so if you go away on 
Thursday I shall have no chance of seeing you again for 
ever so long. 

I was to breakfast with Mr. Rogers this morning but he 
played me false. 

Good bye 

W. M. T. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



Fragment. 
2 1 July 1849. 

\To Mr. Bmokfield.'] 

Adelaide Procter has sent me the most elegant velvet 
purse, embroidered with my initials, and forget-me-nots on 
the other side. I received this peace-offering with a gentle 
heart ; one must not lose old friends at our time of life, and 
if one has offended them one must try and try until they are 
brought back. 

Mrs. Powell, the lady I asked you to stir about, has got 
the place of matron of the Governesses, a house and perqui- 
sites, and 100 a year, an immense thing for a woman with 
nothing. 

On the 30th June, the day you went, Rogers threw me 
over for breakfast, and to-day comes the most lamentable 
letter of excuse. Yesterday, the day madame went away, 
the Strutts asked me to Greenwich, and when I got there, 
no dinner. Another most pathetic letter of excuse. These 
must be answered in a witty manner, so must Miss Procter, 
for the purse ; so must Mrs. Alfred Montgomery, who offers 
a dinner on Monday ; so must two more, and I must write 
that demnition Mr. Browne before evensong. 

From the Punch office, where I'm come for to go to 
dress, to dine with the Lord mayor ; but I have nothing to 
say but that I am yours, my dear old friend, affectionately, 

W. M. T. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 7 1 



Fraement. 



-•Ss 



[1849] 

I was to go to Mrs. Montgomery's at this hour of 10.30, 
but it must be the contrary, that is, Mrs. Procter's. I wrote 
Adelaide her letter for the purse, and instead of thanking her 
much, only discoursed about old age, disappointment, death, 
and melancholy. 

The old people are charming at home, with their kind- 
ness. They are going away at the end of the week, some- 
where, they don't say where, with the children. The dear 
old step-father moves me rather the most, he is so gentle 
and good humoured. Last night Harry came to dinner, and 
being Sunday there was none, and none to be had, and we 
went to the tavern hard-bye, where he didn't eat a bit. I 
did 

At Procter's was not furiously amusing — the eternal G. 
bores one. Her parents were of course there, the papa 
with a suspicious looking little order in his button hole, and 
a chevalier d' indtisirie air, which I can't get over. E. 

didn't sing, but on the other hand Mrs. did. She 

was passionate, she was enthusiastic, she was sublime, she 
was tender. There was one note that she kept so long, 
that I protest I had time to think about my affairs, to have a 
little nap, and to awake much refreshed, while it was going 
on still. At another time, overcome by almost unutterable 
tenderness, she piped so low, that it's a wonder one could 
hear at all. In a word, she was mirobolante, the most art- 
less, affected, good-natured, absurd, clever creature possible. 
When she had crushed G. who stood by the piano hating 
her, and paying her the most profound compliments — she 



72 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

tripped off on my arm to the cab in waiting. I like that ab- 
surd kind creature. 

Drums are beating in various quarters for parties yet to 
come off, but I am refusing any more, being quite done up. 
I am thinking of sending the old and young folks to Cleve- 
don, I am sure Mrs. Robbins and Mrs. Parr will be kind to 
them, won't they ? 



[During an Illness, August 1849] 

No. I. 

63 East Street, Brighton. 

Yesterday I had the courage to fly to Brighton, I have 
got a most beautiful lodging, and had a delightful sleep. I 
write a line at seven o'clock of the morning to tell you these 
good news. G b y. — 



No. 2. 

63 East Street Brighton. 
This morning's, you know, wasn't a letter, only to tell 
you that I was pretty well after my travels ; and after the 
letter was gone, thinks I, the handwriting is so bad and 
shaky, she will think I am worse, and only write fibs to try 
and soothe her. But the cause of the bad writing was a bad 
pen, and impossible ink. See how different this is, though 
I have not much to say now, only that I have been sitting 
on the chain pier in a bath chair for two hours, and feel 
greatly invigorated and pleasantly tired by the wholesome 
sea breezes. Shall I be asleep in two minutes I wonder ? I 
think I will try, I think snoring is better than writing. Come, 






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LETTERS OF THACKERAY. Tl 

let us try a little doze ; a comfortable little doze of a quarter 
of an hour. 

Since then, a somewhat fatiguing visit from the Miss 
Smiths, who are all kindness, and look very pretty in their 
mourning.* I found acquaintances on the pier too, and my 
chair anchored alongside of that of a very interesting nice 
little woman, Mrs. Whitmore, so that there was more talkee- 
talkee. Well, I won't go on writing any more about my 
ailments, and dozes and fatigues ; but sick folks are abomi- 
nably selfish ; sick men that is, and so God bless my dear 
lady. 

W. M. T. 



Thursday. 

I cannot write you long, dear lady ; I have two notes to 
my mother daily, and a long one to Elliotson, &c. ; but I am 
getting on doucement, like the change of air exceedingly, the 
salt water baths, and the bath-chair journeys to the pier 
where it is almost as fresh as being at sea. But do you go 
on writing, please, and as often as you can ; for it does me 
good to get kind letters. God bless you and good-night, is 
all I can say now, with my love to his Reverence from 

W. M. T. 

" Horace Smith died 12th July, 1S49. 



74 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



\_Paris, Feb. 1849] 

My dear Lady : 

I have been to see a great character to-day and another 
still greater yesterday. To-day was Jules Janin, whose books 
you never read, nor do I suppose you could very well. He 
is the critic of the Journal des Debats and has made his 
weekly feuilleton famous throughout Europe — He does not 
know a word of English, but he translated Sterne and I think 
Clarissa Harlowe. One week, havingf no theatres to describe 
in his feuilleton, or no other subject handy, he described his 
own marriage, which took place in fact that week, and abso- 
lutely made a present of his sensations to all the European 
public. He has the most wonderful verve, humour, oddity, 
honesty, bonhomie. He was ill with the gout, or recovering 
perhaps ; but bounced about the room, gesticulating, joking, 
gasconading, quoting Latin, pulling out his books which are 
very handsome, and tossing about his curling brown hair ; — • 
a magnificent jolly intelligent face such as would suit Pan I 
should think, a flood of humourous, rich, jovial talk. And 
now I have described this, how are you to have the least idea 
of him. — I daresay it is not a bit like him. He recommended 
me to read Diderot ; which I have been reading in at his rec- 
ommendation ; and that is a remarkable sentimental cynic, 
too; in his way of thinking and sudden humours not unlike 
— not unlike Mr. Bowes of the Chatteris Theatre. I can 
fancy Harry Pendennis and him seated on the bridge and 
talking of their mutual mishaps ; — no Arthur Pendennis the 
boy's name is ! I shall be forgetting my own next. But 
mind you, my similes don't go any further : and I hope you 
don't go for to fancy that you know anybody like Miss Foth- 
eringay — you don't suppose that I think that you have no 
heart, do you? But there's many a woman who has none, 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 75 

and about whom men go crazy ; — such was the other char- 
acter I saw yesterday. We had a long talk in which she 
showed me her interior, and I inspected it and left it in a 
state of wonderment which I can't describe. 

She is kind, frank, open-handed, not very refined, with a 
warm outpouring of language ; and thinks herself the most 
feeling creature in the world. The way in which she fasci- 
nates some people is quite extraordinary. She affected me 
by telling me of an old friend of ours in the country — Dr. 
Portman's daughter indeed, who was a parson in our parts — 
who died of consumption the other day after leading the pur- 
est and saintliest life, and who after she had received the sac- 
rament read over her friend's letter and actually died with it 
on the bed. Her husband adores her ; he is an old cavalry 
Colonel of sixty, and the poor fellow away now in India, and 
yearning after her writes her yards and yards of the most 
tender, submissive, frantic letters ; five or six other men are 
crazy about her. She trotted them all out, one after another 
before me last night ; not humourously, I mean, nor making 
fun of them ; but complacently, describing their adoration for 
her and acquiescing in their opinion of herself Friends, lover, 
husband, she coaxes them all ; and no more cares for them 
than worthy Miss Fotheringay did. — Oh ! Becky is a trifle to 
her ; and I am sure I might draw her picture and she would 
never know in the least that it was herself I suppose I did 
not fall in love with her myself because we were brought up 
together ; she was a very simple generous creature then. 

Tuesday. Friend came in as I was writing last night, 
perhaps in time to stop my chattering ; but I am encore 
tout dmerveilU de ma cousine. By all the Gods ! I never 
had the opportunity of inspecting such a naturalness and co- 
quetry ; not that I suppose that there are not many such 
women ; but I have only myself known one or two women 
intimately, and I daresay the novelty would wear off if I 



76 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

knew more. I had the Revue dcs 2 mondes and the your- 
nal des Ddbats to dinner ; and what do you think by way of 
a delicate attention the ^/^^ served us up? Mock- turtle soup 
again, and uncommonly good it was too. After dinner I 
went to a ball at the prefecture of Police ; the most splendid 
apartments I ever saw in my life. Such lights, pillars, mar- 
ble, hangings, carvings, and gildings. I am sure King Bel- 
shazzar could not have been more magnificently lodged. — 
There must have been 15 hundred people, of whom I did 
not know one single soul. I am surprised that the people 
did not faint in the Saloons, which were like burning fiery 
furnaces ; but there they were dancing and tripping away, 
ogling and flirting, and I suppose not finding the place a bit 
inconveniently warm. The women were very queer looking 
bodies for the most, I thought, but the men dandies every 
one, fierce and trim with curling little mustachios. I felt 
dimly that I was 3 inches taller than any body else in the 
room but I hoped that nobody took notice of me. There 
was a rush for ices at a footman who broug-ht those refresh- 
ments which was perfectly terrific. — They were scattered 
melting over the heads of the crowd, as I ran out of it in a 
panic. There was an old British dowager with two daugh- 
ters seated up against a wall very dowdy and sad, poor old 
lady ; I wonder what she wanted there and whether that was 
what she called pleasure. I went to see William's old friend 
and mine, Bowes ; he has forty thousand a year and palaces 
in the country, and here he is a manager of a Theatre of Va- 
rietes, and his talk was about actors and coulisses all the time 
of our interview. I wish it could be the last, but he has 
made me promise to dine with him, and go I must, to be 
killed by his melancholy gentlemanlikeness. I think that is 
all I did yesterday. Dear lady, I am pained at your having 
been unwell ; I thought you must have been, when Saturday 
came without any letter. There wont be one today I bet 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 77 

twopence. I am going to a lecture at the Institute ; a lect- 
ure on Burns by M. Chasles, who is professor of English 
literature. What a course of lionizing, isn't it ? But it must 
stop ; for is not the month the shortest of months ? I went 
to see my old haunts when I came to Paris 13 years ago, and 
made believe to be a painter, — ^just after I was ruined and 
before I fell in love and took to marriage and writing. It 
was a very jolly time, I was as poor as Job and sketched 
away most abominably, but pretty contented ; and we used 
to meet in each others little rooms and talk about art and 
smoke pipes and drink bad brandy and water. — That awful 
habit still remains, but where is art, that dear mistress whom 
I loved, though in a very indolent capricious manner, but 
with a real sincerity ? — I see her far, very far off. I jilted 
her, I know it very well ; but you see it was Fate ordained 
ihai marriage should never take place ; and forced me to 
take on with another lady, two other ladies, three other la- 
dies ; I mean the muse and my wife &c. &c. 

Well you are very good to listen to all this egotistic prat- 
tle, chere soeur, si douce et si bonne. I have no reason to 
be ashamed of my loves, seeing that all three are quite law- 
ful. Did you go to see my people yesterday ? Some day 
when his reverence is away, will you have the children ? and 
not, if you please, be so vain as to fancy that you can't amuse 
them or that they will be bored in your house. They must 
and shall be fond of you, if you please. Alfred's open mouth 
as he looked at the broken bottle and spilt wine must have 
been a grand picture of agony. 

I couldn't find the lecture room at the Institute, so I went 
to the Louvre instead, and took a feast with the statues and 
pictures. The Venus of Milo is the grandest figure of figures. 
The wave of the lines of the figure, whenever seen, fills my 
senses with pleasure. What is it which so charms, satisfies 
one, in certain lines ? O ! the man who achieved that statue 



78 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

was a beautiful genius. I have been sitting thinking of it 
these lo minutes in a delightful sensuous rumination. The 
Colours of the Titian pictures comfort one's eyes similarly ; 
and after these feasts, which wouldn't please my lady very 
much I daresay, being I should think too earthly for you, I 
went and looked at a picture I usedn't to care much for in old 
days, an angel saluting a Virgin and child by Pietro Cortona, 
— a sweet smiling angel with a lily in her hands, looking so 
tender and gentle I wished that instant to make a copy of it, 
and do it beautifully, which I cant, and present it to some- 
body on Lady-day. — There now, just fancy it is done, and 
presented in a neat compliment, and hung up in your room 
— a pretty piece — dainty and devotional ? — I drove about 

with , and wondered at her more and more. — She is come 

to " my dearest William" now : though she doesn't care a 
fig for me. — She told me astonishing things, showed me a 
letter in which every word was true and which was a fib from 
beginning to end; — A miracle of deception ; — flattered, fon- 
dled, coaxed — O ! she was worth coming to Paris for ! . . . 
Pray God to keep us simple. I have never looked at any- 
thing in my life which has so amazed me. Why, this is as 
good, almost, as if I had you to talk to. Let us go out and 
have another walk. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 79 



Fragment 

\_Paris, 1849] 

Of course in all families the mother is the one to whom 
the children cling. We don't talk to them, feel with them, 
love them, occupy ourselves about them as the female does. 
— We think about our business and pleasure, not theirs. 
Why do I trouble you with these perplexities ? If I mayn't 
tell you what I feel, what is the use of a friend } That's why 
I would rather have a sad letter from you, or a short one if 
you are tired and unwell, than a sham-gay one — and I don't 
subscribe at all to the doctrine of " striving to be cheerful ". 
A quoi bon, convulsive grins and humbugging good-humour ? 
Let us have a reasonable cheerfulness, and melancholy too, 
if there is occasion for it — and no more hypocrisy in life than 
need be. 

We had a pleasant enough visit to Versailles, and then I 
went to see old Halliday, and then to see old Bess, and to 
sit with the sick Tom Fraser. I spend my days so, and upon 
my word ought to get some reward for being so virtuous. 

On Sunday I took a carriage and went to S. in the coun- 
try. The jolly old nurse who has been in the Ricketts family 
120 years or more or less, talked about Miss Rosa, late M- 
Fanshawe, and remembers her the flower of that branch of 
the family, and exceedingly pretty and with a most lovely com- 
plexion. — And then I told them what a lovely jewel the pres- 
ent Miss Rosa was ; and how very fond I was of her mamma ; 
— and so we had a tolerably pleasant afternoon ; — and I came 
back and sat again with Mr. Thomas Fraser. Yesterday 
there was a pretty little English dance next door at Mrs. Er- 
rington's, and an English country dance being proposed, one 
of the young bucks good-naturedly took a fiddle and played 



8o LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

very well too, and I had for a partner Madame Gudin, the 
painters wife, I think I mentioned her to you, didn't I ? 

She is a daughter of Lord James Hay — a very fair com- 
plexion and jolly face, and so with the greatest fear and trepi- 
dation (for I never could understand a figure) I asked her — 
and she refused because she tells me that she is too ill, and I 
am sure I was very glad to be out of the business. 

I went to see a play last night, and the new comedian 
Mademoiselle Brohan of whom all the world is talkingf, a beau- 
tiful young woman of 17 looking 25 and — I thought — vulgar, 
intensely affected, and with a kind of stupid intelligence that 
passes for real wit with the pittites, who applauded with im- 
mense enthusiasm all her smiles and shrugfs and arestures 
and ogles. But they wouldn't have admired her if she hadn't 
been so beautiful, if her eyes weren't bright and her charms 
undeniable. — I was asked to beg some of the young English 
Seigneurs here to go to an Actress ball, where there was to 
be a great deal of Parisian beauty, which a cosmophilite ought 
to see perhaps as well as any other phase of society. — But I 
refused Madame Osy's ball — my grey head has no call to 
show amongst these young ones, and, as in the next novel 
we are to have none but good characters — what is the use 
of examining folks who are quite otherwise. Meanwhile, 
and for 10 days more, I must do my duty and go out feeling 
deucedly lonely in the midst of the racketting and jigging. 
I am engaged to dinner for the next 3 days, and on Friday 
when I had hoped to be at home — my mother has a tea- 
party, and asked trembling (for she is awfully afraid of me) 

whether I would come — Of course I'll go. 

W. M. T. 



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LETTERS OF THACKERAY. ' 8 1 



\_Parts, 1849] 

They all got a great shock they told me, by reading in 
the Galignani, that W. M. Thackeray was dead, and that it 
was I. Indeed two W. Thackeray's have died within the 
last month. Eh bicnf There's a glum sort of humour in 
all this I think, and I grin like a skull. — As I sent you a let- 
ter to my Mamma, here is a sermon to Annie. You will 
please put it in the post for me ? I think about my dear 
honest old Fatty, with the greatest regard and coniidence. 
I hope, please God, she will be kept to be a companion and 
friend to me. You see I work in the Herschell. 

Give my love to Harry when you write to him, and to 
Mrs. Fanshawe and to Missy. I haven't time to transact let- 
ters to them to-day, or I should use our traveller who carries 
this here, and glory in saving 2/. by that stratagem. And 
I'd have you know. Madam, that I wish I was going to dine 
at Portman Street as I did this day week ; but that as I can't, 
why, I will be a man, and do my duty. Bon soir William, 
bon soir Madame. 



A Fragment 
[1849] 

What you say about Mrs. being doomed does not 

affect me very much, I am afraid. I don't see that living is 
such a benefit, and could find it in my heart pretty readily to 
have an end of it, — After wasting a deal of opportunities and 
time and desires in vanitarianism. What is it makes one so 
blase and tired I wonder at 38? Is it pain or pleasure? 
6 



82 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

Present solitude or too much company before ? both very- 
likely. You see I am here as yesterday, gloomy again, and 
thrumming on the old egotistical string. — But that I think 
you would be pleased to have a letter from me dear lady, I'd 
burn these 2 sheets, or give my blue devils some other outlet 
than into your kind heart. 

Here are some verses which I have been knocking about, 
and are of the same gloomy tendency. You must know that 
I was making a drawing which was something like you at 
first, but ended in a face that is not in the least like yours ; 
whereupon the Poet ever on the watch for incidents began A 
Failure. 



A Failure 

Beneath this frank and smiling face, 
You who would look with curious eye 
The draughtsman's inward mind to spy, 

Some other lineaments may trace. 
Ah ! many a time I try and try 

Lady, to represent their grace. 



Dear face ! The smile with which 'tis lit 
The mantling blush, the gentle eyes. 
Each individual feature lies 

Within my heart so faithful writ. 
Why fails my pencil when it tries ? 



(Here lines may be inserted Ad lib. compli- 
mentary to the person) 








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LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 83 

I look upon the altered line 

And think it ever is my lot ; 

A something always comes to blot 
And mar my impossible design — 
A mocking Fate that bids me pine. 

And struggle and achieve it not. 



Poor baulked endeavours incomplete ! 
Poor feeble sketch the world to show, 
While the marred truth lurks lost below ! 

What's life but this ? a cancelled sheet, 

A laugh disguising a defeat ! 

Let's tear and laugh and own it so. 



Exit with a laugh of demoniac scorn. But I 
send the very original drawing, to these very 
original verses — 



3 Sept. 1849. 

From Paris, 

Monday. 
The man who was to carry my letter yesterday, fled with- 
out giving me notice, so Madame loses the sermon to Annie, 
the pretty picture, &c. I haven't the courage to pay the 
postage for so much rubbish. Isn't it curious that a gentle- 
man of such expensive habits should have this meanness 
about paper and postage ? The best is that I have spent 
three francs in cab-hire, hunting for the man who was to carry 
my two-franc letter. The follies of men are ceaseless, even 



84 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

of comic authors, who make it their business to laug hat the 
folHes of all the rest of the world. 

V/hat do you think I did yesterday night ? If you please, 
ma'am, I went to the play ; and I suppose because it was 
Sunday, was especially diverted, and laughed so as to make 
myself an object in the stalls; but it was at pure farcicality, 
not at wit. The piece was about a pleasure excursion to 
London ; and the blunders and buffoonery, mingled, made 
the laughter. " Eh out, nozis iroiis a Greenwich, manger un 
excellent sandwich " was a part of one of the songs. 

My poor Aunt is still in life, but that is all ; she has quite 
lost her senses. I talked for some time with her old husband, 
who has been the most affectionate husband to her, and who 
is looking on, he being 72 years old himself, with a calm res- 
olution and awaiting the moment which is to take away his 
life's companion. . . . As for Pendennis, I began upon 
No. 7 to-day and found a picture which was perfectly new 
and a passage which I had as utterly forgotten as if I had 
never read or written it. This shortness of memory fright- 
ens me, and makes me have gloomy anticipations. Will poor 
Annie have to nurse an old imbecile of a father some day, who 
will ramble incoherently about old days and people whom 
he used to love ? What a shame it is to talk such gloomy 
stuff to my dear lady ; well, you are accustomed to hear my 
chatter, gloomy or otherwise, as my thoughts go by. I fancy 
myself by the dear old sofa almost, as I sit here prating ; 
and shut my eyes and see you quite clear. I am glad you 
have been doing works of art with your needle. . . . 

W. H. Ainsworth, Esquire, is here ; we dined next each 
other at the ^ Freres yesterday and rather fraternized. He 
showed a friendly disposition I thought, and a desire to forgive 
me my success ; but beyond a good-humoured acquiescence 
in his good will, I don't care. I suppose one doesn't care for 
people, only for a very, very few. A man came in just now 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 85 

who told me he had heard how I was dead. I began to 
laugh, and my laugh meant, " Well old fellow, you don't care, 
do you ? " And why should he ? How often I must have 
said and said these things over to you. Otd Madame, je me 
rcpite. ye me fais vieiix ; fotiblie ; je radote j je ne parle 
que demoi. ye vous fais subir mon egoisme, ma melancholie. 
— Le jour viendra-i-il ok elle vous ginera? Eh, tnojt dieii ' 
— ne soyons pas trop curieux ' demahi viendra ' aujourd' 
hui f oublierai — pourqzioi ne vous vois-je pas aujour-d' Iniif 
I think you have enough of this for to-day, so good-night. 
Good bye, Mr. Williams. I fancy the old street-sweeper at 
the corner is holding the cob, I take my hat and stick, I say 
good bye again, the door bangs finally. Here's a shilling for 
you, old street-sweeper ; the cob trots solitary into the Park. 
ye fais de la litterahcre, ma parole d' hotmeur ! — du style — 
du Sterne toiU fur — O vanitas vanitatum ! God bless 
all, 

W. M. T. 



\j\th Sept. 1849] 

Tuesday, Paris. 

Perhaps by my intolerable meanness and blundering, you 
will not get any letter from me till to-morrow. On Sunday, 
the man who was to take the letter failed me ; yesterday I 
went with it in a cab to the Grande Poste, which is a mile oft", 
and where you have to go to pay. The cab horse was lame, 
and we arrived two minutes too late ; I put the letter into the 
unpaid-letter box ; I dismissed the poor old broken cab horse, 
behind which it was ag^onizingf to sit ; in fine it was a failure. 

When I got to dinner at my aunt's, I found all was over. 
Mrs. H. died on Sunday night in her sleep, quite without 
pain, or any knowledge of the transition. I went and sat 



86 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

with her husband, an old iellow of seventy-two, and found 
him bearing his calamity in a very honest manly way. What 
do you think the old gentleman was doing ? Well, he was 
drinking gin and water, and I had some too, telling his valet 
to make me some. Man thought this was a master-stroke 
of diplomacy and evidently thinks I have arrived to take pos- 
session as heir, but I know nothing about money matters as 
yet, and think that the old gentleman at least will have the 
enjoyment of my aunt's property during life. He told me 
some family secrets, in which persons of repute figure not 
honorably. Ah ! they shock one to think of. Pray, have 
you ever committed any roguery in money matters ? Has 
William ? Have I ? I am more likely to do it than he, that 
honest man, not having his resolution or self-denial. But 
I've not as yet, beyond the roguery of not saving perhaps, 
which is knavish too. I am very glad I came to see my dear- 
est old aunt. She is such a kind tender creature, laws bless 
us, how fond she would be of you. I was going to begin about 
William and say, ' do you remember a friend of mine who 
came to dine at the Thermes, and sang the song about the 
Mogul, and the blue-bottle fly,' but modesty forbade and I 
was dumb. 

Since this was written in the afternoon I suppose if there 
has been one virtuous man in Paris it is madame's most oba- 
jient servant. I went to sit with Mr. H. and found him tak- 
ing what he calls his tiffin in great comfort (tiffin is the meal 
which I have sometimes had the honor of sharing with you 
at one o'clock) and this transacted, — and I didn't have any 
tiffin, having consumed a good breakfast two hours previously 
— I went up a hundred stairs at least, to Miss. B. H.'s airy 
apartment, and found her and her sister, and sat for an hour. 
She asked after you so warmly that I was quite pleased ; she 
said she had the highest respect for ycu, and I was glad to 
find somebody who knew you ; and all I can say is, if you 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 87 

fancy I like being here better than in London, you are in a 
pleasing error; 

Then I went to see a friend of my mother's, then to have 
a very good dinner at the Cafe de Paris, where I had potage 
a la pojt-rpari, think ol pourpart soup. We had it merely for 
the sake of the name, and it was uncommonly good. Then 
back to old H. again, to bawl into his ears for an hour and a 
half; then to drink tea with my aunt — why, life has been a 
series of sacrifices today, and I must be written up in the 
book of good works. For I should have liked to go to the 
play, and follow my own devices best, but for that stern sen- 
timent of duty, which fitfully comes over the most abandoned 
of men, at times. All the time I was with Mr. H. in the 
morning, what do you think they were doing in the next 
room ? It was like a novel. They were rapping at a coffin in 
the bedroom, but he was too deaf to hear, and seems too old 
to care very much. Ah ! dear lady, I hope you are sleeping 
happily at this hour, and you, and Mr. Williams, and another 
party who is nameless, shall have all the benefits of an old 
sinner's prayers. 

I suppose I was too virtuous on Tuesday, for yesterday I 
got back to my old selfish ways again, and did what I liked 
from morning till night. This self indulgence though entire 
was not criminal, at first at least, but I shall come to the 
painful part of my memoirs presently. All the forenoon I 
read with intense delight, a novel called Le Vicomte de Bra- 
gelonne, a continuation of the famous Mousquetaires and just 
as interesting, keeping one panting from volume to volume, 
and longing for more. This done, and after a walk and some 
visits, read more novels, David Copperfield to wit, in which 
there is a charming bit of insanity, and which I begin to be- 
lieve is the very best thing the author has yet done. Then 
to the Varietcs Theatre, to see the play Chamdldon, after 
which all Paris is running, a general satire upon the last 60 



88 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

years. Everything is satirised, Louis XVI, the Convention, 
the Empire, the Restoration etc., the barricades, at which 
these people were murdering each other only yesterday — it's 
awful, immodest, surpasses my cynicism altogether. At the 
end of the piece they pretend to bring in the author and a 
little child who can just speak, comes in and sings a satiric 
song, in a feeble, tender, infantine pipe, which seemed to me 
as impious as the whole of the rest of the piece. They don't 
care for anything, not religion, not bravery, not liberty, not 
great men, not modesty. Ah ! madame, what a great moral- 
ist somebody is, and what moighty foine principles entoirely 
he has ! 

But now, with a blush upon my damask cheek, I come to 
the adventures of the day. You must know I went to the 
play with an old comrade, Roger de Beauvoir, an ex-dandy 
and man of letters, who talked incessantly during the whole 
of dinner time, as I remember, though I can't for the life of 
me recall what he said. Well we went together to the play, 
and he took me where William would long to go, to the 
green-room. I have never been in a French green-room be- 
fore, and was not much excited, but when he proposed to 
take me up to the loge of a beautiful actress with sparkling 
eyes and the prettiest little retrousse nos&y-^os&y'm.\h& world, 
I said to the rdgisseur of the theatre ' lead on ' ! and we went 
through passages and up stairs to the loge, which is not a 
box, but O ! gracious goodness, a dressing room ! 

She had just taken off her rouge, her complexion was 
only a thousand times more brilliant, perhaps, the peignoir of 
black satin which partially enveloped her perfect form, only 
served to heighten &c, which it could but partially do &c. 
Her lips are really as red as &c, and not covered with paint 
at all. Her voice is delicious, her eyes, O ! they flashed &c 
upon me, and I felt my &c, beating so that I could hardly 
speak. I pitched in, if you will permit me the phrase, two or 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 89 

three compliments however, very large and heavy, of the 
good old English sort, and O ! nton dien she has asked me 
to go and see her. Shall I go, or shan't I ? Shall I go this 
very day at 4 o'clock, or shall I not ? Well, I won't tell you, 
I will put up my letter before 4, and keep this piece of intelli- 
gence for the next packet. 

The funeral takes place to-morrow, and as I don't seem 
to do much work here, I shall be soon probably on the wing, 
but perhaps I will take a week's touring somewhere about 
France, Tours and Nantes perhaps or elsewhere, or any- 
where, I don't know, but I hope before I go to hear once 
more from you. I am happy indeed to hear how well you 
are. What a shame it was to assault my dear lady with my 
blue devils. Who could help looking to the day of failing 
powers, but if I last a few years, no doubt I can get a shelter 
somewhere against that certain adversity, and so I ought not 
to show you my glum face or my dismal feelings. That's the 
worst of habit and confidence. You are so kind to me that I 
like to tell you all, and to think that in good or ill fortune I 
have your sympathy. Here's an opportunity for sentiment, 
here's just a little bit of the page left to say something neat 
and pretty, ye les mdprise les jolis mots, vous en ai-je jamais 
fait de ma vie? fe les laisse a Monsieiir Bullar et ses pa- 
reils — -j' €71 ferai pour Madem-oiselle Page, pour la ravissaiite 
la sdmillante la frdtillantc Adcle {c est ainsi qii elle se no7nme) 
mats pour zwus? Allons — partons — il est quatre heures — 
fermons la lettre — disons adieu, I'aTnie et moi — vous m! ecrt- 
rez avant mon ddpart nest ce pas? Allez bien, dormez bien, 
marches bien, sil vous plait, et gardy mwaw ung petty rao- 
reso de voter cure. W. M. T. 



90 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



Paris, [1849] 

As my mother wants a line from me, and it would cost me 
no more to write on two half sheets than one whole one, com- 
mon economy suggests that I should write you a line to say 
that I am pretty well, and leading, as before, a dismal but 
dutiful life. I go and sit with the old Scotch widower every 
night, and with my aunt afterwards. This isn't very amusing, 
but the sense of virtue and self-denial tickles one, as it were, 
and I come home rather pleased to my bed of a night. I 
shall stay here for a few days more. My tour will be to 
Boulogne, probably, where I shan't find the Crowes, who are 
going away, but shall have Mrs. Procter ; and next week 
will see me back in London probably, working away as in the 
old way. 

Yesterday I went a little way into the country to see Miss 
R's husband, my old friend S. They have just got a little 
son, a beautiful child, and the happiness of this couple was 
pleasant, albeit somehow painful, to witness. She is a very 
nice, elegant accomplished young lady, adoring her Augustus, 
who is one of the best and kindest of old snobs. We walked 
across vines to the coach at half past seven o'clock, after an 
evening of two hours and a half, which was quite enough for 
me. She is a little thing, and put me in mind of my own wife 
somehow. Give Mrs. Fanshawe, with my respectful love, a 
good account of her cousin. I am bound to-day to another 
country place, but don't like the idea of it. Tomorrow I dine 
with Mr. T. B. Macaulay, who is staying in this hotel. 

And what else has happened ? I have been to see the 
actress, who received us in a yellow satin drawing room, and 
who told me that she had but one fault in the world, that she 
had trop bon cceur, and I am ashamed to say that I pitched in 
still stronger compliments than before, and I daresay that she 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 9 1 

thinks the enormous old Enghshman is rapturously in love 
with her ; but she will never see him again, that faithless 
giant. I am past the age when Fotheringays inflame, but I 
shall pop her and her boudoir into a book some day, and that 
will be the end of our transactions. A good character for a 
book accompanied us to the funeral, an expatriated parson, 
very pompous, and feeble-minded : who gets his living by 
black jobs entirely and attends all the funerals of our country- 
men ; he has had a pretty good season and is tolerably cheer- 
ful. I was struck by "Behold I show you a mystery" and 
the noble words subsequent, but my impression is, that St. 
Paul fully believed that the end of things and the triumph of 
his adored master, was to take place in his own time, or the 
time of those round about him. Surely St. John had the 
same feeling, and I suppose that this secret passed fondly 
among the initiated, and that they died hoping for its fulfil- 
ment. Is this heresy ? Let his reverence tell me. 

Madame, if you will be so diffident about your composi- 
tions there is no help for it. Your letter made me laugh 
very much, and therefore made me happy. When I saw 
that nice little Mrs. S. with her child yesterday, of course I 
thought about somebody else. The tones of a mother's 
voice speaking to an infant, play the deuce with me some- 
how ; that charming nonsense and tenderness work upon 
me until I feel like a woman or a great big baby myself, — 
fiddlededee. . 

And here the paper is full and we come to the final 
G. B. Y. 

I am always, 

W. M. T. 



92 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



\Paris, September 14, 1849.] 

My DEAR Lady : 

This letter doesn't count, though it's most probbly the 
last of the series. Yesterday I couldn't write for I went to 
Chambourey early in the morning to see those two poor 
Miss Powers, and the poor old faded and unhappy D'Orsay, 
and I did not return home till exactly i minute before post 
time, perhaps 2 late for the letter which I flung into the post 
last night. And so this is the last of the letters and I am 
coming back immediately. The last anything is unpleas- 
ant. 

I was to have gfone to-morrow for certain to Boulogne, at 
least, but a party to Fontainebleau was proposed — by whom 
do you think ? — by the President himself, I am going to dine 
with him to-day, think of that ! I believe I write this for the 
purpose solely of telling you this, — the truth is I have made 
acquaintance here with Lord Douglas, who is very good nat- 
ured, and I suppose has been instigating the President to 
these hospitalities. I am afraid I disgusted Macaulay yester- 
da}^ at dinner, at Sir George Napier's. We were told that 
an American lady was coming in the evening, whose great 
desire in life, was to meet the author of Vanity Fair, and the 
author of the Lays of A. Rome, so I proposed to Macaulay 
to enact me, and to let me take his character. But he said 
solemnly, that he did not approve of practical jokes, and so 
this sport did not come to pass. Well, I shall see you at any 
rate, some day before the 23d., and I hope you will be happy 
at Southampton enjoying the end of the autumn, and I shall 
be glad to smoke a pipe with old Mr. Williams too, for I 
don't care for new acquaintances, whatever some people say, 
and have only your house now where I am completely at 
home. I have been idle here, but I have done plenty of du- 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 93 

tifulness, haven't I ? I must go dress myself and tell old Dr. 
Halliday that I am going to dine with the President, that will 
please him more than even my conversation this evening, and 
the event will be written over to all the family before long, be 
sure of that. Don't you think Mr. Parr will like to know it, 
and that it will put me well with him ? Perhaps I shall find 
the grand cross of the Legion of Honor under my plate, I 
will put it on and come to you in it in that case. 

I was going to have the impudence to give you a daguer- 
reotype of myself which has been done here, very like and 
droll it looks, but it seemed to me too impertinent, and I gave 
it to somebody else. I've bought William four glasses to 
drink beer out of, since I never can get one of the silver ones 
when I come ; don't let him be alarmed, these only cost a 
shilling apiece, and two such loves of emi. de Cologtte bottles 
for Mrs. Procter, and for my dear Mrs. Brookfield I have 
bought a diamond necklace and earrings, — I have bought 
you nothing but the handkerchiefs but I hope you will let 
me give you those, won't you ? 

I was very sorry for Turpin, I do feel an interest in her, 
and I think she is very pretty, all this I solemnly vow and 
protest. My paper is out, here's the last corner of the last 
letter. I wonder who will ask me to dine on Monday next. 



October 31st. [1849] 

My dear Monsieur et Madame : 

Harry says that you won't eat your dinner well if I don't 
write and tell you that I am thriving, and though I don't con- 
sider this a letter at all but simply a message, I have to state 
that I am doing exceedingly well, that I ate a mutton chop 
just now in Harry's presence with great gusto, that I slept 



94 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

12 hours last night and in fact advance by steps which grow 
every day more firm toward convalescence. If you will both 
come down here I will give you beautiful rooms and the best 
of mutton. — I shall stop till Monday certainly, after which I 
may probably go to the club. 

G. B. Y. Both on you. 

W. M. T. 



[Probably from Brighton after serious illness.] 

\Dec : 1 849] 

My dear Lady : 

The weather is so fine and cheerful that I have made my 
mind up to go down to Brighton tomorrow, or somewhere 
where I can be alone, and think about my friend Mr. Penden- 
nis, whom I have been forced to neglect. I have been work- 
ing now until seven o'clock and am dead beat, having done a 
poor dawdling day's work, writing too much, hipped, hacked 
and blue-devilled. I passed Portman Street after an hour's 
ride in the Park but hadn't time to come in, the infernal task- 
master hanging over me ; so I gave my bridle reins a shake 
and plunged into doggerel. Good bye God bless you, come 
soon back both of you. Write to me won't you ? I wish a 
Merry Christmas for you and am 

always yours, 

W. M. T. 




in mmuA uj«U hum- <)«J:t<U. ftuX |mX^U HM'Jvti/u . ^- la. 












lutu^ 



* ^''^j 




LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 95 



Fragment. 

\_Christmas, 1849] 

I stop in the middle of Costigan with a remark appHed to 
readers of Thomas a Kempis and others, which is, I think, 
that cushion-thumpers and High and Low Church extatics, 
have often carried what they call their love for A to what 

seems impertinence to me. How good my has been to 

me in sending me a back ache, — how good in taking it away, 
how blessed the spiritual gift which enabled me to receive the 
sermon this morning, — how trying my dryness at this after- 
noon's discourse, &c. I say it is awful and blasphemous to 
be calling upon Heaven to interfere about the thousand trivi- 
alities of a man's life, that ■ has ordered me something 

indigestible for dinner, (which may account for my dryness in 
the afternoon's discourse) ; to say that it is Providence that 
sends a draught of air upon me which gives me a cold in the 
head, or superintends personally the action of the James' 
powder which makes me well. Bow down, Confess, Adore, 
Admire, and Reverence infinitely. Make your act of faith 
and trust. Acknowledge with constant awe the idea of the 
infinite Presence over all. — But what impudence it is in us, to 
talk about loving God enough, if I may so speak. Wretched 
little blindlings, what do we know about Him ? Who says 
that we are to sacrifice the human affections as disrespectful 
to God ? The liars, the wretched canting fakirs of Christian- 
ism, the convent and conventicle dervishes, — they are only 
less unreasonable now than the Eremites and holy women 
who whipped and starved themselves, never washed, and en- 
couraged vermin for the glory of God. Washing is allowed 
now, and bodily filth and pain not always enjoined ; but still 
they say, shut your ears and don't hear music, close your 



g6 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

eyes and don't see nature and beauty, steel your hearts and 
be ashamed of your love for your neighbour ; and timid fond 
souls scared by their curses, and bending before their unend- 
ing arrogance and dulness, consent to be miserable, and bare 
their soft shoulders for the brutes' stripes, according to the 
nature of women. You dear Suttees, you get ready and glo- 
rify in being martyrized. Nature, truth, love, protest day 
after day in your tender hearts against the stupid remorseless 
tyranny which bullies you. Why you dear creature, what a 
history that is in the Thomas a Kempis book ! The scheme 
of that book carried out would make the world the most 
wretched, useless, dreary, doting place of sojourn — there 
would be no manhood, no love, no tender ties of mother and 
child, no use of intellect, no trade or science, a set of selfish 
beings crawling about avoiding one another and howling a 
perpetual miserere. We know that deductions like this have 
been drawn from the teaching of J. C, but please God the 
world is preparing to throw them over, and I won't believe 
them though they are written in ever so many books, any 
more than that the sky is green or the grass red. Those 
brutes made the grass red many a time, fancying they were 
acting rightly, amongst others with the blood of the person 
who was born today. Good-bye my dear lady and my dear 
old William. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 97 



Fragment. 

[1850] 

I was too tired to talk to Madam when I sent away the 
packet of MS to-day. I'm not much better now, only using 
her as pastime at a club half an hour before dinner. That's 
the way we use women. Well, I was rather pleased with the 
manuscript I sent you to-day, it seems to me to be good 
comedy, my mother would have acted in just such a way if I 
had run away with a naughty woman, that is I hope she 
would, though perhaps she is prouder than I am myself. I 
read over the first part of Pendennis to-day, all the Emily 
Costigan part, and liked it, I am glad to say ; but I am 
shocked to think that I had forgotten it, and read it almost 
as a new book. I remembered allusions which called back 
recollections of particular states of mind. The first part of 
that book was written after Clevedon in 1848 

What a wholesome thing fierce mental occupation is ! 
Better than dissipation to take thoughts out of one ; only one 
can't always fix the mind down and other thoughts will bother 
it. Yesterday I sat for six hours and could do no work ; I 
wasn't sentimentalizing but I couldn't get the pen to go, and 
at four, rode out into the country and saw, whom do you 
think ? O ! lache, coward, sneak, and traitor, that pretty 
Mrs. M. I wrote you about. The night before in the same 
way, restless and wandering aventurier (admire my constant 
use of French terms), I went to Mrs. Prinsep's and saw Vir- 
ginia, then to Miss Berrys' and talked to Lord Lansdowne 
who was very jolly and kind. 

Then to Lady Ashburton, where were Jocelyns just come 
back from Paris, my lady in the prettiest wreath. — We talked 
7 



98 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

about the Gorham controversy, I think, and when the Joce- 
lyns were gone about John Mill's noble Article in the West- 
minsier Review ; an article which you mustn't read, because 
it will shock your dear convictions, but wherein, as it seems 
to me, a great soul speaks great truths ; it is time to begin 
speaking truth I think. Lady Ashburton says not. Our 
Lord spoke it and was killed for it, and Stephen, and Paul, 
who slew Stephen. We shuffle and compromise and have 
Gorham controversies and say, "let things go on smoothly," 
and Jock Campbell writes to the Mother-Superior, and Mil- 
man makes elegant after-dinner speeches at the Mansion 
House — humbugs all ! I am becoming very stupid and 
rabid, dinner-time is come ; such a good dinner, truth be 
hanged ! Let us go to Portland Place. 



\yuly, 1850] 

My dear Lady : 

I have had a bad week and a most cruel time of it this 
month ; my groans were heart-rending, my sufferings im- 
mense ; I thought No. XIX would never be born alive ; — It 
is, but stupid, ricketty, and of feeble intellect, I fear. Isn't that 
a pretty obstetrical metaphor? Well, I suppose I couldn't get 
on because I hadn't you to come and grumble to. You see 
habit does so much, and though there is Blanche Stanley to 
be sure, yet shall I tell you, — I will though perhaps you won't 
believe it — I haven't been there for a month. And what a 
singular thing it is about my dear friend Miss F. — that I 
never spoke to her but once in my life when I think the 
weather was our subject — and as for telling her that I had 
drawn Amelia from anybody of our acquaintance I should have 
as soon thought of — of what ? I have been laboriously cross- 
ing all my t's, see, and thinking of a simile. But it's good fun 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 99 

about poor little B. Does any body suppose I should be such 
an idiot as to write verses to her? I never wrote her a line. 
I once drew one picture in her music book, a caricature of a 
spoony song, in which I laughed at her, as has been my prac- 
tice — alas ! . . . The only person to whom I remember 
having said anything about Amelia was the late Mrs. Ban- 
croft, as I told you, and that was by a surprise. 

Yesterday after a hard day's labour went out to Rich- 
mond ; dined with old Miss Berrys. Lord Brougham there, 
enormously good fun, boiling over with humour and mischief, 
the best and wickedest old fellow I've met, I think. And I 
was better in health than I've been for a fortnight past. O ! 
how I should like to come on Sunday by the Excursion train, 
price 5 1 , and shake hands and come back again ! I've been 
working Pen all the morninsf and reading^ back numbers in 
order to get up names &c., I'd forgotten. I lit upon a very 
stupid part I'm sorry to say ; and yet how well written it is ! 
What a shame the author don't write a complete good story. 
Will he die before doing so ? or come back from America and 
do it ? — 

And now on account of the confounded post regulations — 
I shan't be able to hear a word of you till Tuesday. It's a 
sin and a shame to cut 2 days out of our week as the Phari- 
sees do — and I'll never forgive Lord John Russell, never. — 
The young ladies are now getting ready to walk abroad with 
their dear Par. — It is but a hasty letter I send you dear lady, 
but my hand is weary with writing Pendennis — and my head 
boiling up with some nonsense that I must do after dinner for 
Punch. Isn't it strange that, in the midst of all the selfish- 
ness, that one of doing one's business, is the strongest of all. 
What funny songs I've written when fit to hang myself! 



lOO LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



Thursday. 

As I am not to come back till Saturday, and lest you 
should think that any illness had befallen me, dear lady, I 
send you a little note. This place is as handsome as man 
could desire ; the park beautiful, the quizeen and drinks ex- 
cellent, the landlord most polite and good natured, with a 
very winning simplicity of manner and bonhomie, and the 
small select party tolerably pleasant. Charles Villiers, a bit- 
ter Voltairian joker, who always surprises one into laughter ; 
— Peacock — did you ever read Headlong Hall and Maid 
Marian ? — a charming lyrical poet and Horatian satirist he 
was when a writer ; now he is a whiteheaded jolly old world- 
ling, and Secretary to the E. India House, full of information 
about India and everything else in the world. There are 4 
or 5 more, 2 young lords, — one extremely pleasant, gentle- 
man-like, and modest, who has seen battles in India and gives 
himself not the least airs ; — and there are the young ladies, 2 
pretty little girls, with whom I don't get on very well though, 
— nor indeed with anybody over well. There's something 
wanting, I can't tell you what ; and I shall be glad to be on 
the homeward way again, but they wouldn't hear of my going 
on Friday, and it was only by a strong effort that I could get 
leave for Saturday. 

This paper you see is better, I bought it regardless of ex- 
pense — half a ream of it, at Bristol. 

That Bristol terminus is a confounding place. I missed 
the train I was to go by, had very nearly gone to Exeter and 
was obliged to post twenty-five miles in the dark, from Chip- 
penham, in order to get here too late for dinner. Whilst I 
am writing to you what am I thinking of? Something else 
to be sure, and have a doggrel ballad about a yellow " Post 



LETTERS OE THACKERAY. loi 

Chay " running in my head which I ought to do for Mr. 
Punch. 

We went to the little church yesterday, where in a great 
pew with a fire in it, I said the best prayers I could for them 
as I am fond of I wish one of them would get well 
I must give my young ones three or four weeks of Paris and 
may go a travelling myself during that time ; for I think my 
dear old mother will be happier with the children and without 
their father, and will like best to have them all to herself. 
Mon dieu, is that the luncheon bell already ? I was late at 
dinner yesterday, and late at breakfast this morning. It is 
eating and idling all day long, but not altogether profitless 
idling, I have seen winter woods, winter landscapes, a kennel 
of hounds, jolly sportsmen riding out a hunting, a queer little 
country church with a choir not in surplices but in smock- 
frocks, and many a sight pleasant to think on. — I must go to 
lunch and finish after, both with my dear lady and the yellow 
po'chay. 

Will Mr. and Mrs. Brookfield come and dine with Mr. 
Thackeray on Saturday ? He will arrive by the train which 
reaches London at 5.25, and it would be very, very pleasant 
if you could come — or one of you, man or woman. Mean- 
while I close up my packet with a g. b. y. to my dear lady 
and a kiss to Miss Brookfield, and go out for a walk in the 
woods with a noble party that is waiting down-stairs. The 
days pass away in spite of us, and we are carried along the 
rapid stream of time, you see. And if days pass quick, why 
a month will, and then we shall be cosily back in London 
once more, and I shall see you at your own fire, or lying on 
your own sofa, very quiet and calm after all this trouble and 
turmoil. God bless you, dear lady and William, and your 
little maiden. 

W. M. T. 



I02 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



26 February, 1850. 

After hearingf that Miss Brookfield was doine well in the 
arms of her Mamma, if you please, I rode in the Park on Tues- 
day, where there was such a crowd of carriages along the 
Serpentine, that I blushed to be on horseback there, and 
running the gauntlet of so many beauties. Out of a thou- 
sand carriages I didn't know one, which was odd, and strikes 
one as showing the enormity of London. Of course if there 
had been anybody in the carriages I should have known 
them, but there was nobody, positively nobody. (This sen- 
tence isn't as neatly turned as it might have been, and is by 
no means so playfully satirical as could be wished.) Riding 
over the Serpentine Bridge, six horsemen, with a lady in the 
middle, came galloping upon me, and sent me on to the foot 
pavement in a fright, when they all pulled up at a halt, and 
the lady in the middle cried out. How do you do Mr. &c. 
The lady in the middle was pretty Mrs. L. She made me 
turn back with the six horsemen ; of course I took off my hat 
with a profound bow, and said that to follow in her train 
was my greatest desire — and we rode back, all through the 
carriages, making an immense clatter and sensation, which 
the lady in the middle, her name was Mrs. Liddle, enjoyed 
very much. She looked uncommonly handsome, she had 
eentlemen with moustachios on each side of her. I thought 
we looked like Brighton bucks or provincial swells, and felt by 
no means elated. 

Then we passed out of Hyde Park into the Green Ditto, 
where the lady in the middle said she must have a canter, 
and off we set, the moustachios, the lad)^ and myself, skurry- 
ing the policemen off the road and making the walkers stare. 
I was glad when we got to St. James' Park gate, where I 
could take leave of that terrific black-eyed beauty, and ride 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 03 

away by myself. As I rode home by the Elliot's I longed 
to go in and tell them what had happened, and how it was 
your little girl's birth-day ; but I did not, but came home and 
drank her health instead, and wrote her a letter and slept 
sound. 

Yesterday after writing for three hours or so, what did I 
go out for to see ? First the Miss Jingleby's, looking very 
fresh and pretty ; you see we have consolations ; then a poor 
fellow dying of consumption. He talked as they all do, with 
a jaunty, lively manner, as if he should recover ; his sister 
sat with us, looking very wistfully at him as he talked on 
about hunting, and how he had got his cold by falling with 
his horse in a brook, and how he should get better by going 
to St. Leonard's ; and I said of course he would, and his 
sister looked at him very hard. As I rode away through 
Brompton, I met two ladies not of my acquaintance, in a 
brougham, who nevertheless ogled and beckoned me in a very 
winnine manner, which made me laug^h most wonderful. O ! 
you poor little painted Jezebels, thinks I, do you think you 
can catch such a grey-headed old fogey as me ? poor little 
things. Behind them came dear, honest, kind Castlereagh, 
galloping along ; he pulled up and shook hands ; that good 
fellow was going on an errand of charity and kindness, con- 
sumption hospital, woman he knows to get in, and so forth. 
There's a deal of good in the wicked world, isn't there ? I 
am sure it is partly because he is a lord that I like that man ; 
but it is his lovingness, manliness, and simplicity which I like 
best. Then I went to Chesham Place, where I told them 
about things. You ought to be fond of those two women, 
they speak so tenderly of you. Kate Perry is very ill and 
can scarcely speak with a sore throat ; they gave me a pretty 
bread tray, which they have carved for me, with wheat-ears 
round the edge, and W. M. T. in the centre. O ! yes, but 
before that I had ridden in the Park, and met dear old Elliot- 



I04 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

son, thundering along with the great horses, at ten miles an 
hour. The little 'oss trotted by the great 'osses quite easily 
though, and we shook hands at a capital pace, and talked in 
a friendly manner, and as I passed close by your door, why 
I just went in and saw William and Mrs. F. Then at eight 

o'clock, a grand dinner in Jewry 

My ! what a fine dinner, what plate and candelabra, what a 
deal of good things, and sweetmeats especially wonderful. 
The Christians were in a minority. Lady C. beautiful, serene, 
stupid old lady ; she asked Isn't that the great Mr. Thack- 
eray ? O ! my stars think of that ! Lord M H cele- 
brated as a gourmand ; he kindly told me of a particular dish, 
which 1 was not to let pass, something a la Pompadour, very 
nice. Charles Villiers, Lady Hislop, pretty little Hattie El- 
liot, and Lady Somebody, — and then I went to Miss Berrys' 
— Kinglake, Phillips, Lady Stuart de Rothesay, Lady Water- 
ford's mother. Colonel Damer. There's a day for you. 
Well, it was a very pleasant one, and perhaps this gossip 
about it, will amuse my dear lady. 



[Written to Mrs. Fanshawe and Mrs. Brookfiekl] 

H6tel Bristol, Place Vendome. 

Tuesday, March 5th. 1850 
My dear Ladies : 

I am arrived just this minute safe and sound under the 
most beautiful blue sky, after a fair passage and a good 
night's rest at Boulogne, where I found, what do you think ? 
— a letter from a dear friend of mine, dated September 13th, 
which somehow gave me as much pleasure as if it had been 
a fresh letter almost, and for which I am very much obliged 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 05 

to you. I travelled to Paris with a character for a book, Lord 
Howden, the ex-beau Caradoc or Cradock, a man for whom 
more women have gone distracted than you have any idea of. 
So delightful a middle-aged dandy ! Well, he will make a 
page in some book some day. In the meantime I want to 
know why there is no letter to tell me that madame is getting 
on well. I should like to hear so much. It seems a shame 
to have come away yesterday without going to ask. It was 
the suddenest freak, done, packed and gone in half an hour, 
hadn't time even to breakfast. . . . And as I really 
wanted a little change and fresh air for my lungs, I think I 

did well to escape 

I send this by the Morning Chronicle's packet. Don't be 
paying letters to me, but write & write away, and never mind 
the expense, Mrs. Fanshawe. 

W. M. T. 



Hotel Bristol, Place Vend6me. 

[1850] 

Madame : 

One is arrived, one is at his ancient lodging of the H6tel 
Bristol, one has heard the familiar clarions sound at nine 
hours and a half under the Column, the place is whipped by 
the rain actually, and only rare umbrellas make themselves 
to see here and there ; London is grey and brumous, but 
scarcely more sorrowful than this. For so love I these 
places, it is with the eyes that the sun makes itself on the 
first day at Paris ; one has suffered, one has been disabused, 
but one is not biased to this point that nothing more excites, 
nothing amuses. The first day of Paris amuses always. 
Isn't this a perfectly odious and affected style of writing? 



Io6 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

Wouldn't you be disgusted to have a letter written all like 
that ? Many people are scarcely less affected, though, in 
composing letters, and translate their thoughts into a pom- 
pous unfamiliar language, as necessary and proper for the 
circumstances of letter-writine. In the midst of this senti- 
ment Jeames comes in, having been employed to buy pens in 
the neighbourhood, and having paid he said three francs for 
twenty. — I go out in a rage to the shop, thinking to con- 
found the woman who had cheated him ; I place him outside 
the shop and entering myself ask the price of a score of pens ; 
one franc says the woman ; I call in Jeames to confront him 
with the tradeswoman ; she says, I sold monsieur a box of 
pens, he gave me a five-franc piece, I returned him two 2-franc 
pieces, and so it was ; only Jeames never having before seen 
a two-franc piece, thought that she had given back two franc 
pieces ; and so nobody is cheated, and I had my walk in the 
rain for nothing. 

But as this had brought me close to the Palais Royal, 
where there is the exhibition of pictures, I went to see it, 
wondering whether I could turn an honest penny by criticis- 
ing the same. But I find I have nothing to say about pict- 
ures. A pretty landscape or two pleased me ; no statues did ; 
some great big historical pictures bored me. This is a poor 
account of a Paris exhibition, isn't it? lookine for half a min- 
ute at a work which had taken a man all his might and main 
for a year ; on which he had employed all his talents, and set 
all his hopes and ambition ; about which he had lain awake 
at night very probably, and pinched himself of a dinner that 
he might buy colours or pay models, — I say it seems very 
unkind to look at such a thing with a yawn and turn away 
indifferent ; and it seemed to me as if the cold, marble statues 
looked after me reproachfully and said, " Come back, you sir ! 
don't neglect me in this rude way. I am very beautiful, I am 
indeed. I have many hidden charms and qualities which you 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 107 

don't know yet, and which you would know and love if you 
would but examine a little." But I didn't come back, the 
world didn't care for the hidden charms of the statue, but 
passed on and yawned over the next article in the Catalogue. 
There is a moral to this fable, I think ; and that is all I got 
out of the exhibition of the Palais Royal. 

Then I went to beat up the old haunts, and look about 
for lodgings which are awfully scarce and dear in this quar- 
ter. Here they can only take me in for a day or two, and I 
am occupying at present two rooms in a gorgeous suite of 
apartments big enough and splendid enough for the Lord 
Chief Baron * and all his family. Oh ! but first, I forgot, I 
went to breakfast with Bear Ellice, who told me Lady Sand- 
wich had a grand ball, and promised to take me to a soiree at 
Monsieur Duchatel's. I went there after dining at home. 
Splendid hotel in the Faubourg Saint Germain ; magnificent 
drawing room ; vulgar people, I thought ; the walls were 
splendidly painted ; " C'est du Louis Quinze ou du com- 
mencement de Louis XVI," the host said. Blagucur ! the 
painting is about ten years old, and is of the highly orna- 
mental Cafe school. It is a Louis Phillippist house, and 
everybody was in mourning — for the dear Queen of the Bel- 
gians, I suppose. The men as they arrived went up and 
made their bows to the lady of the house, who sat by the fire 
talking to other two ladies, and this bow over, the gentlemen 
talked, standing, to each other. It was uncommonly stupid. 
Then we went off to Lady Sandwich's ball. I had wrote a 
note to her ladyship in the morning, and received a Kyind in- 
vitation. Everybody was there, Thiers, Mole, and the French 
Sosoiatee, and lots of English ; the Castlereaghs, very kind 
and hearty, my lady looking very pretty, and Cas — (mark the 
easy grace of Cas) — well, and clear-sighted ; Lord Normanby 
and wife, exceeding gracious ; — Lady Waldegrave ; — all sorts 

* The late Lord Chief Baron was the father of thirty-two children. 



Io8 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

of world, and if I want the reign of pleasure, it is here, it is 
here. Gudin the painter asked me to dine today and meet 
Dumas, which will be amusing I hope. 

And I forgot to say that Mr. Thomas Fraser says, that 
Mr. Inspector Brookfield is the most delightful fellow he 
ever met. I went to see my aunt besides all this, and the 
evening and the morning was the first day. 

Sunday morning. I passed the morning yesterday writ- 
ing the scene of a play, so witty and diabolical that I shall 
be curious to know if it is good ; and went to the pictures 
again, and afterwards to Lady Castlereagh and other polite 
persons, finishing the afternoon dutifully at home, and with 
my aunt and cousins, whom you would like. At dinner at 
Gudin's there was a great stupid company, and I sat between 
one of the stupidest and handsomest women I ever saw in 
my life, and a lady to whom I made three observations which 
she answered with Oui, Monsieur, and non, monsieur, and 
then commenced a conversation over my back with my hand- 
some neighbour. If this is French manners, says I, Civility 
be hanged, and so I ate my dinner ; and did not say one 
word more to that woman. 

But there were some pleasant people in spite of her : a 
painter (portrait) with a leonine mane, Mr. Gigoux, that I 
took a liking to ; an old general, jolly and gentlemanlike ; 
a humorous Prince, agreeable and easy : and a wonderful old 
buck, who was my pleasure. The party disported them- 
selves until pretty late, and we went up into a tower fitted 
up in the Arabian fashion and there smoked, which did not 
diminish the pleasure of the evening. Mrs. L. the engineer's 
wife, brouo-ht me home in her brougham, the ereat engineer 
sitting bodkin and his wife scolding me amiably, about Laura 
and Pendennis. A handsome woman this Mrs L. must have 
been when her engineer married her, but not quite up to 
her present aggrandized fortune 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. IO9 

My old folks Avere happy in their quarter, and good old 
G. P. bears the bore of the children constantly in his room, 
with great good humour. But ah, somehow it is a dismal 
end to a career. A famous beauty and a soldier who has 
been in twenty battles and led a half dozen of storming par- 
ties ! Here comes Jeames to say that the letters must this 
instant go ; and so God bless you and your husband and Ht- 
tle maiden, and write soon, my dear kind lady, to 

W. M. T. 



\Paris, 1850] 

I send this scrap by a newspaper correspondent, just to 
say I am very well and so awfully hard at business I have no 
time for more. 



Wednesday. 
Madam and Dear Lady : 

If I have no better news to send you than this, pray don't 
mind, but keep the enclosures safe for me against I come 
back, which won't be many days now, please God. I had 
thought of setting off tomorrow, but as I have got into work- 
ing trim, I think I had best stop here and do a great bit of 
my number, before I unsettle myself by another journey. I 
have been to no gaieties, for I have been laid up with a violent 
cold and cough, which kept me in my rooms, too stupid even 
to write. But these ills have cleared away pretty well now, 
and I am bent upon going out to dinner au cabaret, and to 
some fun afterwards, I don't know where, nor scarce what I 
write, I am so tired. I wonder what will happen with Pen- 
dennis and Fanny Bolton ; writing it and sending it to you, 
somehow it seems as if it were true. I shall know more 



no LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

about them tomorrow ; but mind, mind and keep the manu- 
script ; you see it is five pages, fifteen pounds, by the immor- 
tal Gods ! 

I am asked to a marriage tomorrow, a young Foker, of 
twenty-two, with a lady here, a widow, and once a runaway. 

The pen drops out of my hand, it's so tired, but as the 
ambassador's bag goes for nothing, I like to say how do you 
do, and remember me to Miss Brookfield, and shake hands 
with William. God bless you all. 

This note which was to have gone away yesterday, was 
too late for the bag, and I was at work too late today to 
write a word for anything but Pendennis : I hope I shall 
bring a great part of it home with me at the end of the week, 
in the meantime don't put you to the trouble of the manu- 
script, which you see I was only sending because I had no 
news and no other signs of life to give. I have been out to 
the play tonight, and laughed very pleasantly at nonsense 
until now, when I am come home very tired and sleepy, and 
write just one word to say good-night 

They say there is to be another revolution here very soon, 
but I shall be across the water before that event, and my old 
folks will be here instead. You must please to tell Mrs. 
Fanshawe that I am over head and ears in work, and that I 
beg you to kiss the tips of her gloves for me. There is an- 
other letter for you begun somewhere, about the premises, 
but it was written in so gloomy and egotistical a strain, that 
it was best burnt. I burnt another yesterday, written to' 
Lady Ashburton, because it was too pert, and like Major 
Pendennis, talking only about lords and great people, in an 
easy off hand way. I think I only write naturally to one per- 
son now, and make points and compose sentences to others. 
That is why you must be patient please, and let me go on 
twaddling and boring you. 



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LETTERS OF THACKERAY. Ill 



\Paris, 1850.] 

My dear Lady : 

Do you see how mad everybody is in the world ? or is it 
not my own insanity ? Yesterday when it became time to 
shut up my letter, I was going to tell you about my elders, 
who have got hold of a mad old Indian woman, who calls 
herself Aline Gultave d'origine Mogole, who is stark staring 
mad, and sees visions, works miracles, que sais-je ? The old 
fool is mad of sheer vanity, and yet fool as she is, my people 
actually believe in her, and I believe the old gentleman goes 
to her every day. To-day I went to see D'Orsay, who has 
made a bust of Lamartine, who, too, is mad with vanity. He 
has written some verses on his bust, and asks. Who is this ? 
Is it a warrior ? Is it a hero ? Is it a priest ? Is it a sage ? 
Is it a tribune of the people ? Is it an Adonis ? meaning that 
he is all these things, — verses so fatuous and crazy I never 
saw. Well, D'Orsay says they are the finest verses that ever 
were written, and imparts to me a translation which Miss 
Power has made of them; and D'Orsay believes in his mad 
rubbish of a statue, which he didn't make ; believes in it in 
the mad way that madmen do, — that it is divine, and that he 
made it ; only as you look in his eyes, you see that he doesn't 
quite believe, and when pressed hesitates, and turns away 
with a howl of rage. D'Orsay has fitted himself up a charm- 
ing atelier with arms and trophies, pictures and looking- 
glasses, the tomb of Blessington, the sword and star of Na- 
poleon, and a crucifix over his bed ; and here he dwells with- 
out any doubts or remorses, admiring himself in the most hor- 
rible pictures which he has painted, and the statues which he 
gets done for him. I had been at work till two, all day be- 
fore going to see him ; and thence went to Lady Normanby, 



112 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

who was very pleasant and talkative ; and then tramping 
upon a half dozen of visits of duty. I had refused proffered 
banquets in order to dine at home, but when I got home at 
the dinner hour, everybody was away, the bonne was ill and 
obliged to go to the country, and parents and children were 
away to dine with a Mrs. ... a good woman who writes 
books, keeps a select boarding-house for young ladies who 
wish to see Parisian society, and whom I like, but cannot 
bear, because she has the organ of admiration too strongly. 
Papa was king, mamma was queen, in this company, I a sort 
of foreign emperor with the princesses my daughters. By 
Jove, it was intolerably painful ; and I must go to her soiree 
to-morrow night too, and drag about in this confounded little 
Pedlington. Yesterday night, — I am afraid it was the first 
day of the week, — I dined with Morton, and met no less than 
four tables of English I knew, and went to the play. 
There was a little girl acting, who made one's heart ache ; 
— the joke of the piece is, the child, who looks about three, 
is taken by the servants to a casino, is carried off for an hour 
by some dragoons, and comes back, having learned to smoke, 
to dance slang dances, and sing slang songs. Poor little 
rogue, she' sung one of her songs, from an actor's arms ; a 
wicked song, in a sweet little innocent voice. She will be 
bought and sold within three years from this time, and won't 
be playing at wickedness any more. I shall shut up my desk 
and say God bless all the little girls that you and I love, and 
their parents. God bless you, dear lady. 

I have got a very amusing book, the Tatler newspaper 
of 1709 ; and that shall be my soporific I hope. I have been 
advancing in Blue Beard, but must give it up, it is too dread- 
fully cynical and wicked. It is in blank verse and all a dia- 
bolical sneer. Depend upon it. Helps is right. 

Wednesday. If I didn't write yesterday it was because I 
was wickedly employed. I was gambling until two o'clock 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. II3 

this morning, playing a game called lansquenet which is very- 
good gambling ; and I left off, as I had begun, very thank- 
ful not to carry away any body's money or leave behind any 
of my own ; but it was curious to watch the tempers of the 
various players, the meanness of one, the flurry and excite- 
ment of another, the difference of the same man winning and 
losing ; all which I got, besides a good dinner and a head- 
ache this morning. Annie and Minnie and my mother, came 
to see me yesterday. I don't think they will be so very 
eager for Paris after three weeks here ; the simple habits of 
our old people will hardly suit the little women. Even in 
my absence in America, I don't quite like leaving them al- 
together here ; I wonder if an amiable family, as is very kind 
to me, will give them hospitality for a month ? I was writ- 
ing Blue Beard all day ; very sardonic and amusing to do, 
but I doubt whether it will be pleasant to read or hear, or 
even whether it is right to go on with this wicked vein ; and 
also, I must tell you that a story is biling up in my interior,, 
in which there shall appear some very good, lofty and gener- 
ous people ; perhaps a story without any villains in it would 
be good, wouldn't it ? 

Thursday. — Thanks for your letter madame. If I tell 
you my plans and my small gossip, I don't bore you do I ?' 
You listen to them so kindly at home, that I've got the 
habit, you see. Why don't you write a little handwriting, 
and send me yours ? This place begins to be as bad as 
London in the season ; there are dinners and routs for every- 
day and night. Last night I went to dine at home, with 
bouilli boeuf and ordinaire, and bad ordinaire too; but the 
dinner was just as good as a better one, and afterwards I 
went with my mother to a soirde, where I had to face fifty 
people of whom I didn't know one ; and being there, was 
introduced to other soirde givers, be hanged to them. And 
there I left my ma, and went off to Madame Gudin's the 



114 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

painter's wife, where really there was a beautiful ball ; and all 
the world, all the English world that is ; and to-night it is 
the President's ball, if you please, and tomorrow, and the 
next day, and the next, more gaieties. It was queer to see 
poor old Castlereagh in a dark room, keeping aloof from the 
dancing and the gaiety, and having his thoughts fixed on king- 
dom come, and Bennett confessor and martyr ; while Lady 
Castlereagh, who led him into his devotional state, was en- 
joying the music and the gay company, as cheerfully as the 
most mundane person present. The French people all talk 
to me about Pojiche, when I am introduced to them, which 
wounds my vanity, which is wholesome very likely. Among 
the notabilities was Vicomte D'Arlincourt, a mad old romance 
writer, on whom I amused myself by pouring the most tre- 
mendous compliments I could invent. He said, j'ai vie 
PEcosse ; mais Valter Scott ny etait plus, hdlas ! I said, 
vous y dtiez, Vicotnte, c etait bien assez d'un — on which the 
old boy said I possessed French admirably, and knew to 
speak the prettiest things in the prettiest manner. I wish 
you could see him, I wish you could see the world here. I 
wish you and Mr. were coming to the play with me tonight, 
to a regular melodrama, far away on the Boulevard, and a 
quiet little snug dinner aii. Banqtiet d' Anacrcon. The Ban- 
quet d'Anacreon is a dingj' little restaurant on the boulevard 
where all the plays are acted, and they tell great things of 
a piece called Paillasse in which Le Maitre performs ; nous 
verrons, Madame, nous verrons. But with all this racket and 
gaiety, do you understand that a gentleman feels very lonely ? 
I swear I had sooner have a pipe and a gin and water soiree 
with somebody, than the best President's orgeat. I go to 
my cousins for half an hour almost every day ; you'd like 
them better than poor Mary whom you won't be able to stand, 
at least if she talk to you about her bodily state as she talks 
to me. What else shall I say in this stupid letter ? I've not 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. II5 

seen any children as pretty as Magdalene, that's all. I have 
told Annie to write to you and I am glad Mrs. Fan is going 
to stay ; and I hear that several papers have reproduced the 
thunder and small beer articles ; * and I thank you for your 
letter ; and pray the best prayers I am worth for you, and 
your husband, and child, my dear lady. 

W. M. T. 



Tuesday \_2T,7-d April 1850] 

Your Sunday's letter only came in this morning, I am 
sorry to see my dear lady writes tristely, but I would rather 
you would write sorrowfully if you feel so than sham gaiety 
or light-heartedness. What's the good of a brother to you, 
if you can't tell him things ? If I am dismal don't I give you 
the benefit of the dumps ? Ah ! I should like to be with you 
for an hour or two and see if you are changed and oldened, 
in this immense time that you have been away. But busi- 
ness and pleasure keep me here nailed. I have an awful 
week of festivities before me ; today Shakespeare's birthday 
at the Garrick Club, dinner and speech. Lunch, Madame 
Lionel Rothschild's ; ball. Lady Waldegrave's ; she gives the 
finest balls in London, and I have never seen one yet. To- 
morrow, of five invitations to dinner, the first is Mr. Marshall, 
the Duke of Devonshire's evening party, Lady Emily Dun- 
das' ditto. Thursday, Sir Anthony Rothschild. Friday, the 
domestic affections. Saturday, Sir Robert Peel. Sunday, 
Lord Lansdowne's. Isn't it curious to think — it was strik- 
ing my great mind yesterday, as Annie was sorting the cards 
in the chimney-glass, — that there are people who would give 
their ears, or half their income to go to these fine places ? 
I was riding with an Old Bailey barrister, yesterday in the 

* Thackeray's reply to a criticism in the Times. 



Il6 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

Park, and his pretty wife {071 les ainient jolies, Madame). He 
apologised for knowing people who lived in Brunswick Square, 
and thought to prove his gentility by calling it that demited 
place. 

The good dinner on Friday was very pleasant and quiet 
with old acquaintances, the ladies, M. P.'s wives, took me 
aside and asked confidentially about the fashionable world 
in which it is supposed, I believe, that I live entirely now ; 
and the wonder is that people don't hate me more than they 
do. I tried to explain that I was still a man, and that among 
the ladies of fashion, a lady could but be a lady, and no bet- 
ter nor no worsen Are there any better ladies than you and 
Pincushion ? Annie has found out that quality in the two of 
you, with her generous instincts. I had a delightful morning 
with her on Sunday, when she read me the Deserted Village, 
and we talked about it. I couldn't have talked with her so, 
with anybody else, except perhaps you, in the room. Satur- 
day ! what did I do ? I went to Punch and afterwards to a 
play, to see a piece of the Lady of Lyons performed, by a 
Mr. Anderson. Before that to the Water-Colour Society, 
which was choke-full of bishops and other big-wigs, and 
among them Sir Robert Peel elaborately gracious, — conver- 
sation with Lady Peel, about 2000 people looking on. Bows, 
grins, grimaces on both sides, followed by an invitation to 
dinner next Saturday. The next person I shook hands 
with after Sir Robert Peel, was — who do you think ? Mrs. 
Rhodes of the Back Kitchen ; I thought of you that very 
instant, and to think of you, dear lady, is to bless you. 



After, in going home from the Berrys, where was a great 
assembly of polite persons, Lady Morley, whom you love, (we 
laughed and cracked away so that it would have made you 
angry) my dear Elliot, and Perry, Lord Lansdowne, Car- 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. II7 

lyle, ever so many more. Oh ! stop, at the Water Colours 
on Saturday, Mr. Hallam asked me to dinner. He and Lord 
Mohun and Miss JuHa went and admired a picture, O ! such 
a spoony picture. Sunday I went to Hampstead with the 
infants, and dined at the Crowes' ; I went to Higgins', a very 
pleasant little party ; sorry his reverence could not come. 
And then, which is I believe Monday, I was alarmed at not 
getting my manuscript back ; I drew wood blocks all day, 
rode in the Park for three hours without calling or visiting 
anywhere ; came home to dinner, went to the Berrys's and 
am back again at twelve, to say G. B. Y. 



[1850] 

Cambridge. 

Madam : 

I have only had one opportunity of saying how do you do 
to-day, on the envelope of a letter which you will have re- 
ceived from another, and even more intimate friend W. H. B. 
This is to inform you that I am so utterly and dreadfully mis- 
erable now he has just gone off at one o'clock to Norwich 
by the horrid mail, that I think I can't bear this place beyond 
tomorrow and must come back again. 

We had a very pleasant breakfast at Dr. Henry Maine's 
and two well-bred young gents of the University, and broiled 
fowls and mushrooms, just as we remember them 200 years 
ago. ... 

I have had the meanness not to take a private room and 
write in consequence in the Coffee Apartment in a great 
state of disquiet. Young under-graduates are eating supper, 
chattering is going on incessantly. I wonder whether Will- 
iam is safe in the train, or will he come back in two minutes. 



llS LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

too late for the conveyance. Yes, here he comes actually 
— no, it is only the waiter with a fresh supply of bitter beer 
for the young gents. Well, we brexfested with Mr. and Mrs. 
Maine, and I thought him a most kind, gentle, and lovable 
sort of man, so to speak, and liked her artlessness and sim- 
plicity. (Note that this is the same horrid ink of last night, 
which will blot.) and then we went to fetch walks over 
the ground, forgotten, and yet somehow well remembered. 
William says he is going to bring you down here, and you 
will like it and be very happy. 

Just now William, I was going to write Villiam, but I 
knew you wouldn't like it, says, " She is dining at Lady 
Monteagle's," so I said " Let us drink her health," and we 
did, in a mixture of ale and soda water, very good. There 
was a bagman asleep in the room, and we drank your health, 
and both of us said, "God bless her," I think this is the chief 
part of my transactions during the day. ... I think I 
said we walked about in haunts once familiar. We went to 
the Union where we read the papers, then drove to the river 
where we saw the young fellows in the boats, then amidst 
the College groves and cetera, and peeped into various courts 
and halls, and were not unamused, but bitterly melancholious, 
though I must say William complimented me on my healthy 
appearance, and he for his part, looked uncommonly well. 

I went then to see my relations, old Dr. Thackeray 75 
years of age, perfectly healthy, handsome, stupid and happy, 
and he isn't a bit changed in twenty years, nor is his wife, 
strange to say. I told him he looked like my grandfather, 
his uncle, on which he said, " Your grandfather was by no 
means the handsomest of the Thackerays," and so I suppose 
he prides himself on his personal beauty. At four, we went 
to dine with Don Thompson in Hall, where the thing to me 
most striking was the if you please, the smell of the din- 
ner, exactly like what I remember afore-time. Savoury odours 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 19 

of youth borne across I don't know what streams and deserts, 
struggles, passions, poverties, hopes, hopeless loves and use- 
less loves of twenty years ! There is a sentiment suddenly 
worked out of a number of veal and mutton joints, which 
surprises me just as much as it astonishes you, but the 
best or worst of being used to the pen is, that one chatters 
with it as with the tongue to certain persons, and all things 
blurt out for good or for bad. You know how to take 
the good parts generously and to forget the bad, dear 
kind lady. 

Then we went to Jenny Lind's concert, for which a gen- 
tleman here gave us tickets, and at the end of the first act 
we agreed to come away. It struck me as atrociously stupid. 
I was thinking of something else the whole time she was ju- 
gulating away, and O ! I was so glad to get to the end and 
have a cigar, and I wanted so to go away with Mr. Williams, 
for I feel entirely out of place in this town. This seems to me 
to be spoken all in a breath, and has been written without 
a full stop. Does it not strike you as entirely frantic and 
queer ? Well, I wish I were back. 

I am going out to breakfast to see some of the gallant 
young blades of the University, and tonight, if I last until 
then, to the Union to hear a debate. What a queer thing it 
is. I think William is a little disappointed that I have not 
been made enough a lion of, whereas my timid nature trem- 
bles before such honours, and my vanity would be to go 
through life as a gentleman — as a Major Pendennis — you 
have hit it. I believe I never do think about my public char- 
acter, and certainly didn't see the gyps, waiters and under- 
graduates whispering in hall, as your William did, or thought 
he did. He was quite happy in some dreary rooms in Col- 
lege, where I should have perished of ennui, — thus are we 
constituted. An old hook-nosed clergyman has just come 
into the Coffee-room, and is looking over my shoulder I 



I20 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

think, and has put a stop to the sentence beginning " thus 
are we constituted &c. 

Jenny Lind made £apo by her concert last night and has 
given ^loo to the hospital. This seems rather pompous 
sort of piety, it would be better to charge people less than 
31/6 for tickets, and omit the charity to the poor. But you 
see people are never satisfied (the hook-nosed clergyman has 
just addressed a remark) only I pitied my cousins the Miss 
Thackerays last night, who were longing to go and couldn't, 
because tickets for four or five of them in the second rows, 
would have cost as many guineas, and their father could not 
afford any such sum. . . . Present my best compliments 
to Mrs. Fanshawe. If you see Mrs. Elliot remember me to 
her most kindly, and now to breakfast. 



Written to us, when we were at Cambridge. [1850.] 

Wednesday, Midnight. 

I have made an awful smash at the Literary Fund and 
have tumbled into 'Evins knows where ; — ^It was a tremen- 
dous exhibition of imbecility. Good night. I hope you 2 
are sound asleep. Why isn't there somebody that I could 
go and smoke a pipe to ? 

Bon Soir 

But O ! what a smash I have made ! 

I am talking quite loud out to myself at the Garrick sen- 
tences I intended to have uttered : but they wouldn't come 
in time. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 121 



After the fatal night of the Literary Fund disaster, when 
I came home to bed (breaking out into exclamations in the 
cab, and letting off madly, parts of the speech which wouldn't 
explode at the proper time) I found the house lighted up, 
and the poor old mother waiting to hear the result of the 
day. — So I told her that I was utterly beaten and had made 
a fool of myself, upon which with a sort of cry she said " No 
you didn't, old man," — and it appears that she had been 
behind a pillar in the gallery all the time and heard the 
speeches ; and as for mine she thinks it was beautiful. So 
you see, if there's no pleasing everybody, yet some people 
are easily enough satisfied. The children came down in the 
morning and told me about my beautiful speech which Granny 
had heard. She got up early and told them the story about 
it, you may be sure ; her story, which is not the true one, 
but like what women's stories are. 

I have a faint ofhmmerinof notion of Sir Charles Hedges 
having made his appearance somewhere in the middle of the 
speech, but of what was said I haven't the smallest idea. The 
discomfiture will make a good chapter for Pen. It is thus 
we vciiSfL^ Jlcche de tout bois : and I, I suppose every single 
circumstance which occurs to pain or please me henceforth, 
will go into print somehow or the other, so take care, if 
you please, to be very well behaved and kind to me or 
else you may come in for a savage chapter in the very next 
number. 

As soon as I rallied from the abominable headache which 
the Free Masons tavern always gives, I went out to see 
ladies who are quite like sisters to me, they are so kind, lively 
and cheerful. Old Lady Morley was there and we had a jolly 
lunch, and afterwards one of these ladies told me by whom 
she sat at Lansdowne House, and what they talked about 



122 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

and how pleased, she, my friend was. She is a kind gener- 
ous soul and I love her sincerely. 

After the luncheon (for this is wrote on Saturday, for all 
yesterday I was so busy from nine till five, when my horse 
was brought and I took a ride and it was too late for the 

post) I went to see , that friend of my youth whom I 

used to think 20 years ago the most fascinating, accom- 
plished, witty and delightful of men. I found an old man in 

a room smelling of brandy and water at 5 o'clock at ■ , 

quite the same man that I remember, only grown coarser and 
stale somehow, like a piece of goods that has been hanging 
up in a shop window. He has had 15 years of a vulgar wife, 
much solitude, very much brandy and water I should think, 
and a depressing profession ; for what can be more depress- 
ing than a long course of hypocrisy to a man of no small 
sense of humour ? It was a painful meeting. We tried to 
talk unreservedly, and as I looked at his face I remembered 
the fellow I was so fond of — He asked me if I still consorted 
with any Cambridge men ; and so I mentioned Kinglake 
and one Brookfield of whom I saw a good deal. He was 
surprised at this, as he heard Brookfield was so violent a 
Puseyite as to be just on the point of going to Rome. He 
can't walk, having paralysis in his legs, but he preaches every 
Sunday, he says, being hoisted into his pulpit before service 
and waiting there whilst his curate reads down below. 

I think he has very likely repented : he spoke of his 
preaching seriously and without affectation : perhaps he has 
got to be sincere at last after a long dark lonely life. He 
showed me his daughter of 15, a pretty girl with a shrewish 
face and bad manners. The wife did not show. He must 
have been glad too when I went away and I dare say is more 
scornful about me than I about him. I used to worship him 
for about 6 months ; and now he points a moral and adorns 
a tale such as it is in Pendennis. He lives in the Duke of 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 23 

park at and wanted me to come down and see him, 

and go to the Abbey he said, where the Duke would be so 
glad to have me. — But I declined this treat — O fie for shame ! 
How proud we get ! Poor old Harry ! and this bat- 
tered vulgar man was my idol of youth ! My dear old Fitz- 
gerald is always right about men, and said from the first that 
this was a bad one and a sham. You see, some folks have a 
knack of setting up for themselves idols to worship. 

Don't be flying off in one of your fits of passion, I don't 
mean you. 

Then I went to dine at 's, where were his wife and 

sister. I don't thing so much of the wife, though she is pretty 
and clever — but Becky-fied somehow, and too much oi 2. pe- 
tite maitresse. I suppose a deal of flattery has been poured 
into her ears, and numberless men have dangled round that 
pretty light little creature. The sister with her bright eyes 
was very nice though, and I passed an evening in great delec- 
tation till midnight drawing nonsense pictures for these ladies, 
who have both plenty of relish for nonsense. Yesterday, af- 
ter working all day, and then going to the London Library 
to audit accounts — doesn't that sound grand ? — and taking a 
ride, I came home to dinner, fell asleep as usual afterwards, 
slept for 12 hours, and am now going to attack Monsieur Pen- 
dennis. Here is the journal. Now Ma'm have you been 
amused ? Is King's very fine ? is Trinity better ? did you 
have a nice T at Mrs. Maine's ? When are you coming back ? 
Lord and Lady Castlereagh came here yesterday, and I want 
you to come back, so that I may give them an entertainment ; 
— for I told my lady that I wanted to show her that other 
lady mentioned in the Punch article as mending her husband's 
chest of drawers — but I said waistcoat. — Sir Bulwer Lytton 
called yesterday. 

To-night I am going to the bar dinner, and shall proba- 
bly make another speech. — I don't mind about failing there, 



124 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

so I shall do pretty well. I rode by Portman Street on Thurs- 
day. Please to write and let me know whether you'll dine 
on the 28th or the 30th, or can you give me both those days 
to choose from. And so God bless both on you. 
(Signed 3 hands clasped.) 



Fragment of a letter 
About 1850 

I could not come yesterday evening to ring at the door ; 
for I did not return until 8 o'clock from the visit to the emi- 
grant ship at Gravesend, and then I had to work until 12, 
and polish off Pendennis. There are always four or five 
hours work when it is over, and four or five more would do 
it all the eood in the world, and a second, or third readingf- 

That emigrant business was very solemn and affecting ; 
it was with difficulty I could keep my spectacles dry — amongst 
the people taking leave, the families of grave-looking parents 
and unconscious children, and the bustle and incidents of de- 
parture. The cabins in one of the ships had only just been 
fitted up, and no sooner done than a child was that instant 
born in one of them, on the very edge of the old world as it 
were, which it leaves for quite a new country, home, empire. 
You shake hands with one or two of these people and pat 
the yellow heads of the children (there was a Newcastle 
woman with eight of them, who interested me a good deal) 
and say " God bless you, shake hands, you and I shall never 
meet again in this world, go and do your work across the 
four months of ocean, and God prosper it." The ship drops 
down the river, it gives us three great cheers as we come 
away in the steamer with heavy hearts rather. In three 
hours more Mr. W. M. T. is hard at work at Punch office ; 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 25 

Mr. Parson Ouikette has got to his night school at St. 
George's in the East ; that beautiful gracious princess of a 
Mrs. Herbert is dressing herseh'" up in diamonds and rubies 
very likely, to go out into the world, or is she up stairs in 
the nursery, reading a good book over the child's cradle ? 
Oh ! enormous, various, changing, wonderful, solemn world ? 
Admirable providence of God that creates such an infinitude 
of men, it makes one very grave, and full of love and awe. 
I was thinking about this yesterday morning before six, when 
I was writing the last paragraph of Pendennis in bed, and the 
sun walked into the room and supplied the last paragraph 
with an allusion about you, and which I think means a bene- 
diction upon William, and your child, and my dear lady. God 
keep you. 

As I am waiting to see Mrs. BuUar, I find an old review 
with an advertisement in it, containing a great part of an arti- 
cle I wrote about Fielding, in 1840 in the Times. Perhaps 
Madame will like to see it, and Mr. Williams. My wife was 
just sickening at that moment ; I wrote it at Margate, where 
I had taken her, and used to walk out three miles to a little 
bowling-green, and write there in an arbour — coming home 
and wondering what was the melancholy oppressing the poor 
little woman. The Times eave me five sfuineas for the arti- 
cle. I recollect I thought it rather shabby pay, and twelve 
days after it appeared in the paper, my poor little wife's mal- 
ady showed itself 

How queer it is to be carried back all of a sudden to that 
time, and all that belonged to it, and read this article over ; 
doesn't the apology for Fielding read like an apology for 
somebody else too ? God help us, what a deal of cares, and 
pleasures, and struggles, and happiness I have had since that 
day in the little sunshiny arbour, where, with scarcely any 
money in my pocket, and two little children, (Minnie was a 



126 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

baby two months old) I was writing this notice about Fielding. 
Grief, Love, Fame, if you like. — I have had no little of all 
since then (I don't mean to take the fame for more than it's 
worth, or brag about it with any peculiar elation.) 



My dear Madam : On calling on our mutual friend Mrs. 
Procter, yesterday, she was polite enough to offer me a seat 
in her box at Drury Lane theatre this evening, when Her 
Majesty honours the play-house with a visit for the benefit of 
Mr. Macready. Shakespeare is always amusing, and I am 
told the aspect of the beef-eaters at the royal box is very im- 
posing. I mentioned to Mrs. Procter that I had myself wit- 
nessed many entertainments of this nature, and did not very 
much desire to be present, but intimated to her that I had a 
friend who I believed was most anxious to witness Mr. Mac- 
ready's performance in the atcgust presence of the Sovereign. 
I mentioned the name of your husband, and found that she 
had already, with her usual politeness, dispatched a card to 
that gentleman, whom I shall therefore have the happiness of 
meeting this evening. But perhaps you are aware, that a 
chosen few are admitted behind the scenes of the theatre, 
where, when the curtain rises, they appear behind the per- 
formers, and with loyal hearts join in the national anthem, at 
the very feet of their Queen. My reverend friend has an ele- 
gant voice, perhaps he would like to lift it up in a chorus, 
which though performed in the temple of Thespis, I cannot 
but consider to be in the nature of a hymn. I send there- 
fore a ticket of which I beg his polite acceptance, and am 
dear Madam, with the utmost respect. 

Your very faithful servant, 

W. M. Thackeray. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 27 

P. S. I was a little late for the magnificent entertainment 
of my titled friends Sir William and Lady Molesworth, on 
Saturday, and indeed the first course had been removed, when 
I made my appearance. The banquet was sumptuous in the 
extreme, and the company of the most select order. I had 
the happiness of sitting next to Clarence Bulbul Esq., M.P., 
and opposite was the most noble, the Marquis of Steyne. 
Fancy my happiness in the company of persons so distin- 
guished. A delightful concert followed the dinner, and the 
whole concluded with a sumptuous supper, nor did the party 
separate until a late hour. 



Written about the time when we were at Park Cottage South- 
ampton 

[1850] 

As the Sunday Post is open again, I write you a word 
of good-bye — and send you a little commission. Please to 
give Dr. Bullar's Infirmary 30/ for me and the children, — or 
put that sum into his money-box at Prospect Place. I tried 
my very hardest to compose my mind and ballad in the rail- 
way but it was no use. I start for Antwerp at 9 tomorrow 
morning ; shall be there at 6 or so on Monday ; and sleep 
probably at Cologne or Bonn ; and if anybody chooses to 
write to me at Frankfort, Poste Restante, I should get the 
letter I daresay. — Shall I send you Lady Kicklebury's Tour ? 
I will if it is at all funny or pleasant, but I doubt if it will 
do for letters well. Oh how glum and dingy the city looks, 
and smok)' and dreary ! Yesterday as I walking in the woods 
with Mrs. Procter looking at the columns of the fir trees, I 
thought of the pillars here, and said "This place is almost 



128 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

as lonely as the Reform Club in September." But the dif- 
ference to the feeling mind is very great betwixt the two sol- 
itudes, and for one I envy the birds in the Hampshire boughs 
— what rubbish ! 



Fragment. 

We have been to Shoolbred's to buy a gown for granny. 
We have been to Madame Victorine's to order new dresses 
for ourselves. We have been to call at Mrs. Elliot's, Mrs. 
Prinsep's, Lady Rothschild's, Mr. H. Hallam's, Mrs. James's, 
Mrs. Pollock's, Lady Pollock's, and the young women are 
gone home, and I am expecting Mr. William to dine here. 
I have ordered such a nice dinner ; we are to go to the 
Sartoris' afterwards. Will you go there next Friday ? I 
think I shall go somewhere on Sunday, Monday and Tues- 
day, I have no engagements for those three days, isn't it 
wonderful ? But I'll be magnanimous and not bother my 
dear lady's friends. 

I saw Harry Hallam, he and the faithful Maine were read- 
ing hard. Maine wanted me to fix to cro to his house on Fri- 
day the 4th May, but I wouldn't. Harry was very pleasant, 
jovial, and gracious. He has been speaking well of me to 
the Elliots'. The artful dodger, he knew they would tell 
me again. What kind women they are ! They say they 
had a very nice letter from you ; I didn't have a nice let- 
ter from you ; and as for your letter to my mamma, which 
I read, O ! ma'am, how frightened you were when you wrote 
it, and what for were you in a fright ? You have brains, 
imagination, wit ; how conceited it is to be afraid, then. 

I saw my lovely Virginia to-day, she was as kind and 
merry as ever. The children seemed to stare to hear me 
laugh and talk, I never do at home. . . 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 29 



Mr. Inspector, 

Mr. Kenyon having called upon me to fix a day when you 
may have the honour of meeting me at his house, I have pro- 
posed Christmas Eve, and am with compliments to the geehrte 
Frau Schulinspektorin 

Yours 

W. M. T. 



White Lion, Bristol, 

Monday 1850. 
My dear Lady : 

With the gold pen there's no knowing how and what I 
write, the handwriting is quite different and it seems as if one 
was speaking with a different voice. Fancy a man stepping 
up to speak to you on stilts and trying to make a bow, or 
paying you compliments through a Punch's whistle ; — not 
that I ever do pay you a compliment, you know, but I can't 
or I shan't be able for a line or two to approach you natu- 
rally, and must skate along over this shiny paper. 

I went to Clevedon and saw the last rites performed for 
poor dear Harry. — * I went from here, and waited at Can- 
dy's till the time of the funeral, in such cold weather ! Candy's 
shop was full of ceaseless customers all the time — there was a 
little boy buying candles and an old woman with the toothache 
— and at last the moment drew nigh and Tinling in a scarf and 
hat-band driving himself down from the Court, passed the 
shop, and I went down to the church. It looked very tranquil 
and well ordained, and I had half an hour there before the 
procession came in view. Those ceremonies over a corpse — 

* H. F. Hallam died 2-tth Oct. 1850. 



130 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

the immortal soul of a man being in the keeping of God, and 
beyond the reach of all undertakers, — always appear to me 
shocking rather than solemn, — and the horses and plumes 
give me pain. — The awful moment was when the dear old 
father — the coffin being lowered into the vault where so much 
of his affection and tenderest love lies buried, went down into 
the cave and gave the coffin a last kiss ; — there was no stand- 
ing that last most affecting touch of Nature. . . . Mr. 
Hallam who had been up-stairs came down after an hour or 
two ; and I was so sorry that I had decided on coming back 
to Bristol, when he asked me whether I wasn't going to 
stay ? Why didn't I ? I had written and proposed myself 
to Dean Elliot in the morning personally, and I find he is out 
of town on returning here in the coldest night to the most 
discomfortable inn, writing paper, gold pen. . . . Duty, 
Duty is the word, and I hope and pray you will do it cheer- 
fully. 

Now it is to comfort and help the weak-hearted, and so 
may your comforter and helper raise you up when you fall. 
I wonder whether what I said to you yesterday was true ? I 
know what I think about the famous chapter of St. Paul that 
we heard to-day, — one glory of the sun, and another of the 
moon, and one flesh of birds and one offish and so forth, — 
premature definitions — yearnings and strivings of a great 
heart after the truth. Ah me — when shall we reach the 
truth ? How can we with imperfect organs ? but we can get 
nearer and nearer, or at least eliminate falsehood. 

To-morrow then for Sir John Cam Hobhouse. Write to 
me there, dear sister, and tell me you are cheerful and that 
your baby is well, and that you love your affectionate old 
brother. When will you see the children ? to-morrow I hope. 
And now I will go to bed and pray as best I can for you and 
yours and your nieces and your faithful old Makepeace. 

G. B. Y. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 13 1 

1851. 

I have no news to give for these two days, but I have 
been busy and done nothing. Virtue doesn't agree with me 
well, and a very little domestic roseleaf rumpled puts me off 
my work for the day. Yesterday it was, I forget what ; to- 
day it has been the same reason ; and lo ! Saturday cometh 
and nothing is done. . . . We have been to the Zoolog- 
ical Gardens this fine day and amused ourselves in finding 
likenesses to our friends in many of the animals. Thank 
Evns ! both of the girls have plenty of fun and humour ; 
your's ought to have, from both sides of the house, — and 
a deal of good besides, if she do but possess a mixture of 
William's disposition and yours. He will be immensely ten- 
der over the child when nobody's by, I am sure of that. No 
father knows for a few months what it is, but they learn after- 
wards. It strikes me I have made these statements before. 

We had a dull dinner at Lady 's, a party of 

chiefly ; and O ! such a pretty one, blue eyes, gold hair, 
alabaster shoulders and such a splendid display of them. 
Venables was there, very shy and grand-looking — how kind 
that man has always been to me ! — and a Mr. Simeon of the 
Isle of Wight, an Oxford man, who won my heart by prais- 
ing certain parts of Vanity Fair which people won't like. 
Carlyle glowered in in the evening ; and a man who said a 
good thing. Speaking of a stupid place at the sea-side, 
Sandwich I think, somebody said " Can't you have any fun 
there ? " " O ! yes," Corry said, " but you must take it with 
you." A nice speech I think, not only witty but indicating 
a gay cheerful heart. I intend to try after that ; we intend 
to try after that ; and by action and so forth get out of that 
morbid dissatisfied condition. Now I am going to dress to 
dine with Lord Holland ; my servant comes in to tell me it 



132 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

is time. He is a capital man, an attentive, alert, silent, plate- 
cleaning, intelligent fellow ; I hope we shall go on well to- 
gether, and that I shall be able to afford him. . . . 

Boz is capital this month, some very neat pretty natural 
writing indeed, better than somebody else's again. By Jove, 
he is a clever fellow, and somebody else must and shall do 
better. Quiet, pleasant dinner at Lord Holland's ; leg of 
mutton and that sort of thing, home to bed at 10.30, and to- 
morrow to work really and truly. Let me hear, please, that 
you are going on well and I shall go on all the better. 



April 29th, 1 85 1. 
Madam and dear Lady : 

Will you have a little letter to-day, or a long letter to- 
morrow ? for there's only half an hour to post time. — A little 
letter to-day ? — I don't wonder at poets being selfish, such as 
Wordsworth and Alfred. — I have been for five days a poet, 
and have thought or remembered nothing else but myself 
and my rhymes and my measure. If somebody had come to 
me and said, " Mrs. Brookfield has just had her arm cut off," 
I should have gone on with. Queen of innumerable isles, 
tidumtidy, tidumtidy, and not stirred from the chair. The 
children and nobody haven't seen me except at night ; and 
now though the work is just done, (I am just returned from 
taking it to the Times office) I hardly see the paper before 
me, so utterly beat, nervous, bilious and overcome I feel ; so 
you see you chose a very bad day ma'am for a letter from 
yours very sincerely. If you were at Cadogan Place I would 
walk in, I dare say, say God bless you, and then ask leave 
to go to sleep. Now you must be thinking of coming back 
to Pimlico soon, for the lectures are to begin on the 15th. I 
tried the great room at Willis's yesterday, and recited part 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 33 

of the multiplication table to a waiter at the opposite end, so 
as to try the voice. He said he could hear perfectly, and I 
daresay he could, but the thoughts somehow swell and am- 
plify with that high-pitched voice and elaborate distinctness. 
As I perceive how poets become selfish, I see how orators 
become humbugs and selfish in their way too, absorbed in 
that selfish pursuit and turning of periods. It is curious to 
take these dips into a life new to me as yet, and try it and 
see how I like it, isn't it ? Ah me, idleness is best ; that is, 
quiet and repose of mind and somebody to love and be fond 
of, and nil admirari in fine. The gentlemen of the G. tell 
me, and another auditor from the Macready dinner, that my 
style of oratory was conspicuous for consummate ease and 
impudence, I, all the while feehng in so terrible a panic that 
I scarcely knew at the time what I was uttering, and didn't 
know at all when I sat down. — This is all I have to tell you 
about self, and ten days which have passed away like a fever. 
Why, if we were to let the poetic cock turn, and run, there's 
no end of it I think. Would you like me now to become a 
great — fiddlededee ? no more egotisms Mr. M. if you please. 
I should have liked to see your master on Sunday, but 
how could I ? and Lord ! I had such a headache, and Dicky 
Doyle came, and we went to Soyer's Symposium and the 
Crystal Palace together, where the great calm leviathan 
steam engines and machines lying alongside like great line 
of battle ships, did wonderfully move me ; and I think the 
English compartment do beat the rest entirely, and that let 
alone our engines, which be incomparable, our painters, artifi- 
cers, makers of busts and statues, do deserve to compare 
with the best foreign. This I am sure will interest and 
please Miss Brookfield very much. God bless that dear lit- 
tle lady. I would give two-pence to hear her say, " more 
tea." Oh, by the way can I have that young woman of 
whom Rossiter spoke ? Mary goes away at the end of the 



134 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

week and a cook is cominor, and I want a maid, but have had 
no leisure to think of one until now, when my natural affairs 
and affections are beginning to return to my mind, and when 
I am my dear lady's friend and servant, 

W. M. T. 



May, 1851. 
Amie: 

I write you a little word after that Exhibition from 
home. . ...... 

The ode has had a great success. What do you mean 
by " an ode as she calls it ? " Vive dieu, Madame, it is 
either an ode or nix (the German for nothing.) And as 
for the Exhibition, which don't interest me at all so much, it 
was a noble, awful, great love-inspiring, gooseflesh-bringing 
sight. I got a good place by good luck and saw the whole 
affair, of which no particular item is wonderful ; but the gen- 
eral effect, the multitude, the riches, the peace, the splen- 
dour, the security, the sunshine, great to see, — much grander 
than a coronation. The vastest and sublimest popular festi- 
val that the world has ever witnessed before. What can one 
say about it but commonplace ? There was a Chinese with 
a face like a pantomime-mask and shoes, who went up and 
kissed the Duke of Wellington, much to the old boy's sur- 
prise. 

And the Queen looked not uninteresting ; and Prince Al- 
bert grave, handsome, and princely ; and the Prince of Wales 
and the Princess Royal are nice children, — very eager to talk 
and observe they seemed. And while the Archbishop was 
saying his prayer, beginning with Pater Noster, which 
sounded, in that wonderful throng, inexpressibly sweet and 
awful, three Romish Priests were staring about them, with 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 35 

opera glasses ; which made me feel as angry as the Jews 
who stoned Stephen. 

I think this is all I have to say. I am very tired and the 
day not over, for I have promised the children to take them 
to the play, in recompense for their disappointment in not 
getting to the Exhibition, which they had hopes of seeing 
through my friend Cole. . . . . . ... 



[1851-] 

Reform Club. 
My Dear Sir or Madam : 

Pax vobiscum • ora pro nobis. If you go to the lecture 
to-day, will you have the fly ? It will be only ever so little out 
of the fly's way to come for you : and will you fetch me from 
this place please, and will you send an answer by coachman 
to say whether you will come or no ? 

I had a gentle ride in the Park, and was all but coming 
to 15, but I thought I wouldn't get off my oss at any place 
save that where I am going to work, namely this here, until 
lecture time. Doyle will be in waiting at 4^ o'clock to let 
the stray sheep into the fold. 

I am, yours 

Makepeace, 
Bishop of Mealy Potatoes. 



136 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



My Dear Lady : 

I have been at work until now, eight o'cloclc. The house 
is very pleasant, Mr. and Mrs. G. bent on being so, the din- 
ners splendacious, and what do you think I did yesterday ? 
Please to tell Spring Rice this with my best regards, tomor- 
row. I thought over the confounded Erminia matter in the 
railroad, and wrote instantly on arriving here, a letter of con- 
trition and apology to Henry Taylor for having made, what I 
see now, was a flippant and offensive allusion to Mrs. Taylor. 
I am glad I have done it. I am glad that so many people 
whom I have been thinking bigoted and unfair and unjust 
towards me, have been right, and that I have been wrong, 
and my mind is an immense deal easier. 



My dear : Will you, I mean Mr. Brookfield, like to 

come to Mrs. S's sworry to-night ? There will be very pretty 
music, and yesterday when I met her, I said I wanted her 
very much to go and sing to a sick lady of my acquaintance 
and she said she would with the greatest pleasure in the 
world ; and I think it would be right if Mr. Brookfield should 
call upon her, and I am disengaged on Wednesday next 
either for evening or dinner, and Mrs. Sartoris' number is 99 
Eaton Place, and I am. 

Your obedient servant 

W. M. Thackeray. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 137 



My dear Vieux : 

I have told the mouche to call for me at the Punch office 
at eight, and to come round by Portman Street first. If you 
like you can come and we can go to a little play, a little 
something, to Hampstead even if you were up to it. If 
you'd like best to sit at home, I'd like to smoke a pipe with 
you ; if you'd like best to sit at home alone, I can go about my 
own business, but don't mind choosing which way of the three 
you prefer, and 

Believe me, hallis yours 

W. M. T. 



My dear sick Lady : 

I send you i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, MSS just to amuse you for 
ten minutes. Annie's I am sure will ; isn't it good ? the 
perilous passage, and the wanting to see me. The letters 
are to ladies who bother me about the Bath and Wash-house 
fite ; and the verses, marked 2, were written in a moment of 
depression — I wonder whether you will like No. 2 ? 

Virginia wasn't at dinner after all, yesterday. Wasn't 
that a judgment on somebody ? She stopped to take care of 
a sick sister she has ; but I made myself as happy as circum- 
stances admitted, and drank your health in a glass of Mr. 
Prinsep's excellent claret ; one can't drink mere port this 
weather. 

When you have read all the little papers, please put them 
back, and send them by the printer's devil to their owner. It 
has just crossed my mind that you may think it very con- 
ceited, my sending you notes to read, addressed to grand 
ladies, as if I was proud of my cleverness in writing them. 



138 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

and of being in a state of correspondence with such grand 
persons. But I don't want to show off, only to try and give 
you ever so Httle amusement, and I don't choose to think 
about what other people choose to think about. 
Yours, dear Mrs. Brookfield, 

W. M. Thackeray. 



My dear Madam : 

I am always thinking of Mrs. C — W — H — with a feel- 
ing of regard, so intense and incomprehensible, that feeble 
words cannot give it utterance, and I know that only a strong 
struggle with my interior and a Principle which I may say is 
based on the eternal data of perennial reminiscences, can keep 
this fluttering heart tolerably easy and secure. But what, 
what, is Memory ? Memory without Hope is but a negative 
idiosyncracy, and Hope without Memory, a plant that has no 
root. Life has many such, but still I feel that they are too 
few ; death may remove or in some way modify their poig- 
nancy ; the future alone can reconcile them with the irrevocable 
fiat of yesterday, and tomorrow I have little doubt will laugh 
them into melancholy scorn. Deem not that I speak lightly, 
or that beneath the mask of satire, any doubt, any darkness, 
any pleasure even, or foreboding, can mingle with the depth 
of my truthfulness. Passion is but a hypocrite and a moni- 
tor, however barefaced. 

Action, febrile continuous action, should be the pole star 
of our desolate being. If this is not reality, I know not what 
is. Mrs. C. W. H. may not understand me, but you will. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 139 



Fragment. 

. . . And is W. Bullar going to work upon you with 
his " simple mysticism ? " I don't know about the Unseen 
World ; the use of the seen World is the right thing I'm 
sure ! — it is just as much God's world and Creation as the 
Kingdom of Heaven with all the angels. How will you 
make yourself most happy in it? how secure at least the 
greatest amount of happiness compatible with your condition ? 
by despising to-day, and looking up cloudward ? Pish. Let 
us turn God's to-day to its best use, as well as any other 
part of the time He gives us. When I am on a cloud a-sing- 
ing, or a pot boiling — I will do my best, and if you are ill, 
you can have consolations ; if you have disappointments, you 
can invent fresh sources of hope and pleasure. I'm glad you 
saw the Crowes, and that they gave you pleasure ; — and that 
noble poetry of Alfred's gives you pleasure (I'm happy to say 
ma'am I've said the very same thing in prose that you like — 
the very same words almost). The bounties of the Father I 
believe to be countless and inexhaustible for most of us here 
in life ; Love the greatest. Art (which is an exquisite and 
admiring sense of nature) the next. — By Jove ! I'll admire, if 
I can, the wing of a Cock-sparrow as much as the pinion of 
an Archangel ; and adore God the Father of the earth, first ; 
waiting for the completion of my senses, and the fulfilment of 
His intentions towards me afterwards, when this scene closes 
over us. So when Bullar turns up his i to the ceiling, I'll 
look straight at your dear kind face and thank God for know- 
ing that, my dear ; and though my nose is a broken pitcher, 
yet, Lo and behold there's a Well gushing over with kindness 
in my heart where my dear lady may come and drink. God- 
bless you, — and William and little Magdalene. 



HO LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



Fraarment. 



I have had the politest offer made me to go to Scotland, 
to Edinburgh, where there is a meeting of the savants — just 
the thing for me, you know ; thence to the Highlands with 
Edward Ellice ; thence to Miss Prince's friend, the Duchess, 
who is the most jovial, venerable, pleasant, and I should 
think too, a little wicked, old lady. And I suppose I could be 
franked through the kingdom from one grandee to another ; 
but it don't seem much pleasure or rest, does it ? Best 
clothes every day, and supporting conversation over three 
courses at dinner ; London over again. And a month of 
solitary idleness and wandering would be better than that, 
wouldn't it ? On the other hand it is a thing to do and a 
sight to see, sure to be useful professionally, some day or 
other, and to come in in some story unborn as yet. 

I did the doggerel verses which were running in my head 
when I last wrote you, and they are very lively. You'd say 
the author must have been in the height of good spirits ; — 
no, you wouldn't, knowing his glum habit and dismal views 
of life generally. 

We are going on a little holiday excursion down the 
river to Blackwall, to board the American Packet-ship, the 
Southampton, I told you of before ; and shake hands with 
the jolly captain, and see him out of the dock. Then the 
young ladies are going to Don Giovanni in the evening, and 
I to dine with the Earl of Carlisle, but I want quiet. 

Do you remember my telling you ofO'Gorman Mahon, 
bidding some ladies to beware of me for I could talk a bird 
off a tree ? I was rather pleased at the expression, but 
O'Gorman last Saturday, took me away out of Lord Palmer- 
ston's arms, with whom I was talking, and said that some 
ladies had informed him, that when he made use of that ex- 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 141 

pression, my countenance assumed a look of the most diabol- 
ical rage and passion, and that I abused him, O'Gorman in 
the most savage manner. In vain I remonstrated, he'll be- 
lieve it to the end of his life. 



1851. 

Good Friday. 

Yesterday evening in the bitter blast of the breeze of 
March, a Cavalier, whose fingers were so numbed that he 
scarce could hold the rein of his good steed, might have been 
perceived at a door in Portman Street in converse with a 
footman in dark green livery, and whose buttons bore the 
cognizance of the Well-known house of Brookfield. Clouded 
with care and anxiety at first the horse-man's countenance (a 
stalwart and grey-haired man he was, by our lady, and his 
face bore the marks of wounds received doubtless in early 
encounters) presently assumed a more cheerful aspect when 
he heard from the curly-pated servitor whom he interrogated 
that his Lady's health was better. "Gramercy" he of the 
steed exclaimed " so that she mend I am happy! happier 
still when I may behold her ! Carry my duty. Fellow, to my 
Mistress' attendant, and tell her that Sir Titmarsh hath been 
at her gate." It closed upon him. The horse-man turned his 
charger's head home-ward, and soon was lost to view in the 
now lonely park. 

I've been to church already with the young ones — had a 
fine ride in the country yesterday — am going to work directly 
this note goes off — and am exceedingly well and jolly in 
health. I think this is all my news. . . . Mrs. Elliot 
has been very bad but is mending. I dined there last night. 
She was on the sofa, and I thought about her kind face com- 



142 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

ing in to me (along side of another kind-face) when I was ill. 
What numbers of good folks there are in the world ! Fred. 
Elliot would do anything, I believe, to help me to a place. 
Old Miss Berry is very kind too, nothing can be kinder ; but 
I will go back to my poetry for Punch, such as it is, and say 
good-bye to my dear lady and Miss Brookfield and Mr. 

W. M. T. 



[1851.] 

Mesdames : 

You mustn't trust the honest Scotsman, who is such a 
frantic admirer that nothing less than a thousand people will 
content him. I had a hundred subscribers and two hundred 
other people for the first lecture. Isn't that handsome ? It 
is such a good audience that I begin to reflect about going 
to America so soon. Why, if so much money is to be made 
in this empire, not go through with the business and get 
what is to be had ? The Melgunds I saw at the sermon, 
and the Edinburgh big-wigs in plenty. The M's live over 
the way, I go to see them directly and thank them. And I 
like to tell you of my good luck, and am always yours, 

W. M. T. 




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LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 143 



15 July, 1851. 

The happy family has scarce had a moment's rest since 
we left the St. Katherine's wharf, and this is wrote on board 

the steamer in the Rhine, with ever so many fine views 

at my back, — Minnie on t'other side writing- to her grand- 
mother, and Annie reading her father's works in the Tauch- 
nitz edition. It has not been a very brilliant journey hith- 
erto, but the little ones are satisfied, that's the main point. 
The packet to Antwerp was awful, a storm, and a jib carried 
away, and a hundred women being sick on the cabin floor all 
night. The children very unwell, but behaving excellently ; 
their pa, tranquil under a table and not in the least sick, for 
a wonder. 

We passed the day, Friday, at Antwerp, when I hope his 
reverence came home to you better. And it was very pleas- 
ant going about with the children, walking and lionising. 
Yesterday, we got up at five and rushed to Cologne ; today 
we rose at four, and rushed to Mayence. We shall sleep at 
Wiesbaden or at Frankfurt tonight, as the fancy siezes me ; 
and shall get on to Heidelberg, then to Basle, then to Berne, 
& so on to Como, Milan, Venice, if it don't cost too much 
money. I suppose you are going to church at this time, and 
know the bells of Knightsbridge are tolling. If I don't go to 
church myself (but I do, here, this instant, opposite the young- 

ones) I know who will say a God bless me 

I bought Kickleburys, Rebecca mid Rowena, and the Rhuie 
Story and read them through with immense pleasure. Do 
you know I think all three Capital, and R. and R. not only 
made me laugh but the other thing. Here's pretty matter to 
send a lady from a tour ! Well, I know you like to hear my 
praises and I am glad to send them to you. They are put- 
ting off a flat-bottomed boat from the shore — they are putting 



144 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

out the tables for dinner. I will lock up my paper and finish 
my letter at some future halting-place, and so good-bye dear 
lady. 

Wiesbaden. The first minute to myself since we came 
away, and that in a ground floor closet, where it has been 
like sleeping in the street, — the whole house passing by it. 
It is the HStel de la Rose. Annie and Minnie are put away 
somewhere in the top of the house, and this minute at six in 
the morning, on the parade, they have begun music. The 
drive hither last night from the steamer was the most beauti- 
ful thing which has happened to us yet, and a view of the 
Rhine at Sunset, seen from a height, as lovely as Paradise. 
This was the first fine day we have had, and the splendour 
of the landscape-colours something marvellous to gaze upon. 
If Switzerland is better than this, we shall be in a delirium. 
It is affecting to see Annie's happiness. My dear noble 
creature, always magnanimous and gentle. I sat with the 
children and talked with them about their mother last night. 
It is my pleasure to tell them how humble-minded 
their mother was, how humble minded you are, my dear 
lady. They bid me to the bath, I rise, I put on my scarlet 
gownd, I go. 

Thursday morning. Again six o'clock. Heidelberg. 
After the bath and the breakfast we discovered that we were 
so uncomfortable at that most comfortable inn the Rose, 
without having the least prospect of bettering ourselves, that 
we determined on quitting Wiesbaden, though Mrs. Stewart 
Mackenzie had arranged a party for us, to see the Duke's 
garden, — an earthly paradise according to her account, — and 
though in the walk, a taking his waters, whom should I see, 
but T. Parr, Esquire, and I promised to go and see him and 
your sister. But Dieu dispose, and we came off to Frankfurt 
and took a carriage there for two hours and a half and in- 
spected the city and then made for Heidelberg which we 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 45 

reached at 6\, too late for anything but dinner and a sleep 
afterwards, in the noisiest street I ever slep in ; and there 
were other causes for want of rest, and so I got me up at five 
and soothed myself with the pleasant cigar of morn. 

My dear lady, the country is very pretty, zwischen Frank- 
furt and Heidelberg, especially some fantastical little moun- 
tains, the Melibocus range, of queer shapes, starting out of 
the plain, capped with darkling pine forests and ruined cas- 
tles, covered with many coloured crops and based by peace- 
ful little towns with old towers and walls. And all these 
things as I behold, I wish that somebody's eyes could see 
them likewise ; and R ! I should like a few days rest, and 
to see nothing but a shady wood and a tolerably stupid book 
to doze over. 

We had Kingsley and his parents from Antwerp ; a fine 
honest go-ahead fellow, who charges a subject heartily, im- 
petuously, with the greatest courage and simplicity ; but 
with narrow eyes (his are extraordinarily brave, blue and 
honest), and with little knowledge of the world, I think. But 
he is superior to us worldlings in many ways, and I wish I 
had some of his honest pluck. And so my stupid paper is 
full, and I send my love to you and yours. 



146 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



Thursday, 17th. [July, 185 1.] 

Yesterday was a golden day, the pleasantest of the jour- 
ney as yet. The day before we got to Baden-Baden ; and I 
had a notion of staying, say two or three days, having found 
an agreeable family acquaintance or two, Madame de Bonne- 
val, sister of Miss Galway, with whom we went to the hippo- 
drome, & M. Martchenko, that nice Russian who gave me 
cigars and flattered me last year ; but the weather beginning 
to be bad, and the impure atmosphere of the pretty, witty 
gambling place not good for my young ones, we came away 
by the Basel railroad in the first-class, like princes. A most 
delightful journey through the delicious landscape of plain 
and mountains, which seemed to Switzify themselves as we 
came towards here ; and the day's rest here has not been 
least pleasant, though, or perhaps because, it rained all the 
morning and I was glad to lie on the sofa and smoke my 
cigar in peace. On Tuesday at Baden it was pretty. Hav- 
ing been on duty for five days, I went out for a solitary walk, 
and was finding myself tant soit pezc tired of my dear little 
companions ; and met Madame de Bonneval, who proposed 
a little tea, and a little society &c. ; and when I came back to 
the inn, there was Annie, with Minnie on her knees, and tell- 
ing her a story with a sweet maternal kindness and patience, 
God bless her. This touched me very much and I didn't 
leave them again till bedtime, and didn't go to the rouge- 
et-noir and only for half an hour to Monsieur and Madame 
de Bonneval, — from whose society I determined to escape 
next day, — and we agreed it was the pleasantest day we had 
had ; and Minnie laid out the table of the first class carriage 
(they are like little saloons and delightful to travel in) with 
all the contents of the travelling bag, books, o de Cologne, 
ink &c. ; and we had good trout for supper at nine o'clock ; 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 47 

and today, at two, we walked out and wandered very pleas- 
antly for two hours and a half about the town and round it ; 
and we are very hungry ; and we hope the dinner bell will 
ring soon — and tomorrow I am forty years old, and hope to 
find at Berne a letter from my dear lady. You see one's let- 
ters must be stupid, for they are written only when I am 
tired and just come off duty ; but the sweet young ones' hap- 
piness is an immense pleasure to me, and these calm sweet 
landscapes bring me calm and delight too ; the bright green 
pastures, and the soft flowing river (under my window now) 
and the purple pine-covered mountains, with the clouds flick- 
ering round them — O ! Lord ! how much better it is than 
ridinsf in the Park and gfoine to dinner at eisfht o'clock ! I 
wonder whether a residence in this country would ennoble 
one's thoughts permanently, and get them away from mean 
quarrels, intrigues, pleasures ? make me write good books — 
turn poet perhaps or orator — and get out of that business of 
London — in which there is one good thing? Ah, one good 
thing, and God bless her always and always. I see my dear 
lady and her little girl ; pax be with them. Is it only a week 
that we are gone, it seems a year. 

Berne. Saturday igih. Faucon. — I must tell you that I 
asked at Heidelberg at the post only by way of a joke, and 
never so much as expecting a half-penny worth of letter from 
you ; but here I went off to the post as sure as fate. Thinks 
I, it being my birthday yesterday there must be a little some- 
thing waiting for me at the poste restante, but the deuce a bit 
of a little something. Well I hope you're quite well, and 
I'm sure you'd write if something hadn't prevented you, and 
at Milan or at Venice I hope for better fortune. We had the 
most delightful ride yesterday from Basel, going through a 
country which I suppose prepares one for the splendider 
scenery of the Alps ; kind good-natured little mountains, not 
too awful to look at, but encouraging in appearance, and lead- 



148 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

ing us gradually up to the enormities which we are to con- 
template in a day or two. A steady rain fell all day, but this, 
as it only served to make other people uncomfortable, (es- 
pecially the six Belgian fellow-travellers in the Bei-wageti, 
which leaked, and in which they must have had a desperate 
time) rather added to our own pleasure, snug in the coupd. 
We have secured it for tomorrow to Lucerne, and today for 
the first time since our journey there's a fine bright sun out, 
and the sight we have already had of this most picturesque of 
all towns, gives me a zest for that fine walk which we are 
going to fetch presently. I have made only one sketch in 
this note ; best not make foolish sketches of buildings, but 
look about and see the beautiful pictures done for you by Nat- 
ure beneficent. It is almost the first place I have seen in 
Europe where the women actually wear costumes — in Rome 
only the women who get up for the painters dress differently 
from other folks. Travelling as Paterfamilias, with a daugh- 
ter in each hand, I don't like to speak to our country folks ; 
but give myself airs, rather, and keep off from them. If I 
were alone I should make up to everybody. You don't see 
things so well a trois as you do alone ; you are an English 
gentleman ; you are shy of queer-looking or queer-speaking 
people; you are in t\i& coupe ; you are an earl; — confound 
your impudence, if you had ,^5000 a year and were Tomparr, 
Esq., you could not behave yourself more high and mightily. 
Ah ! I recollect ten years back, a poor, devil looking wistfully 
at the few napoleons in his goicsset, and giving himself no airs 
at all. He was a better fellow than the one you know per- 
haps ; not that our characters alter, only they develop and 
our minds grow grey and bald, &c. I was a boy ten years 
ago, bleating out my simple cries in the Great Hoggarty dia- 
mond. We have seen many pretty children, two especially, 
sitting in a little tub by the roadside ; but we agree that 
there is none so pretty as baby Brookfield, we wish for her 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 149 

and for her mother, I believe. This is a brilliant kind of a 
tour isn't it ? egotistical twaddle. I've forgot the lectures as 
much as if they had never been done, and my impression is 
that they wfere a failure. Come along young ladies, v^re'll 
go a walk until dinner time, and keep the remainder of this 
sheet (sacrificing the picture, as after all, why shouldn't we ? 
such a two-penny absurd thing ?) and folding the sheet up in 
a different way. So good bye lady, and I send you a G and 
a B and a Y. 

Lucerne. Monday morning. — We are in love with Berne. 
We agree that we should like to finish our lives there, it 
is so homely, charming and beautiful, without knowing it ; 
whereas this place gives itself the airs of a beauty and of- 
fends me somehow. We are in an inn like a town, bells 
begin at four in the morning, two hours ago, and at present 
all the streets of the hotel are alive ; we are not going up the 
Righi ; Y should we go up a dimmed mountain to see a 
dimmed map under our feet? We are going on to Milan 
pretty quick. The day after tomorrow we shall sail down 
the Major lake, we hope to Sesto Calendi and so to Milan. I 
wonder whether you have written to me to Como ? Well, 
I would have bet five to one on a letter at Berne ; but such 
is life and such is woman, that the philosopher must not 
reckon on either. And what news would you have sent? 
that the baby is well, that you have enjoyed yourself pretty 
well at Sevenoaks ? — I would give 6*^ to hear as much as that. 

\Here occurs the Drawing reprodttced on p. 150.] 
Such is a feeble but accurate outline of the view out of my 
window at this moment, and all the time I am drawing it, 
(you will remark how pleasantly the firs and pastures in the 
foreground are indicated, whereas I cannot do anything with 
ink, being black, to represent the snow on the mountains 
behind) I am making pretty dramatic sketches in my mind of 
misfortune happening to you, — that you are unwell, that you 



15° 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



are thrown out of a carriage, that Dr. Locock is in attend- 
ance, que sais-je? 

As for my dear young ones I am as happy with them as 
possible ; Annie is a fat lump of pure gold, the kindest dear- 
est creature, as well as a wag of the first water. It is an 
immense blessing that Heaven has given me such an artless 
affectionate companion. We were looking at a beautiful, 
smiling, innocent view at Berne, on Saturday, and she said, 



tM>A ItfW 'MUM (^ ^c^ \»JUK, Scuk 1 Wud li(i ta(*<| (4 Unk ILJ ijcu Lu^ CulfH"^ 

Siu-lt U. a. WW. Ud AC 

id WiA 'IuitimaJ "-^ aft 
Ua tout I iUM. huMAuJ^ 

It flu -jiot^ V,^^ a^ n.j)r 




" it's like Baby Brookfield." There's for you ! and so it was 
like innocence, and brightness, and &c. &c. Oh ! may she 
never fall in love absurdly and marry an ass ! If she will 
but make her father her confidant, I think the donkey 
won't long keep his ground in her heart. And so the 
paper is full and must go to England without ever so much 
as saying thank you for your letter. Good-bye my dear 
lady, good-bye Miss Brookfield, Good-bye Mr. Brookfield, 
says 

Your affectionate, 

W. M. T. 
Au Suisse, July 2ist. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 15 1 

[Fragment.] Paris, 1851. 

A Story with a Moral. 

Last night I went to a party at the house of my mother's 
friend Madame Colemache (who introduced me to Madame 
Ancelot the authoress, who was dying to see me, said Ma- 
dame Colemache, only I found on talking to Madame Ancelot 
that she didn't know who I was, and so was no more dying 
than the most lively of us) and coming down stairs with 
my Ma I thought to myself, I will go home and have an 
hour's chat with her, and try and cheer and console her, for 
her sad tragic looks melted my heart, and always make me 
think I am a cruel monster ; and so I was very tender and 
sentimental and you see caressed her filially as we went 
down. It was a wet night and the fly was waiting, and she 
was just going to step in — but there entered at the house 
door a fiddler with his fiddle under his arm, whom when dear 
old Mater dolorosa beheld, she said, " O ! that is Monsieur 
un tel who has come to play a duo with Laure ; I must go 
back and hear him." And back she went, and all my senti- 
mentality was gulped down and I came home and sent the 
fly back two miles for her, with Jeames to escort her in the 
rain. The Moral is that women with those melancholy eyes, 
and sad, sad looks are not always so melancholy as they 
seem ; they have consolations, — amusements, fiddlers, &c. 



I am happy, as happy as I can be here, which is pretty 
well, though I am bored daily and nightly, and drag about 
sulkily from tea party to tea party. Last night my mother 
had her little T, and they danced, and it was not at all un- 



152 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

pleasant quand on yetait. I found an old school-fellow, look- 
ing ten years younger than myself, whom I remember older 
and bigger than myself twenty-eight years ago ; and he had 
got a charming young wife, quite civilized and pleasant to 
talk to, and the young ladies had their new frocks and looked 
tolerably respectable, and exceedingly happy. They are to 
go to a party on Monday, and another on Wednesday, and 
on Thursday (D. V) we shall be on the homeward road 
again. 

I had cuddled myself with the notion of having one even- 
ing to myself, one quiet dinner, one quiet place at the play ; 
but my mother took my only evening and gave it to an old 
lady whom I don't want to see, and who would have done 
very well without me, — was there ever such a victim ? I go 
about from house to house and grumble everywhere. I say 
Thursday, D. V., for what mayn't happen ? My poor cousin 
Charlotte has a relapse of rheumatic fever ; my Aunt is in a 
dreadful prostration and terror. " If anything happens to 
Charlotte," she says, " I shall die, and then what will Jane 
do?" 



There's a kind of glum pleasure, isn't there, in sitting by 
sick beds and trying to do one's best ? I took the old G. P. 
to dinner at a Cafe yesterday, before the soiree ; he is very 
nice and kind and gentle 

Well, on Wednesday I am going to dine with the Prefet 
de Police, and afterwards to Madame Scrivanacks ball, where 
I shall meet, — I, an old fellow of forty — all the pretty ac- 
tresses of Paris. Let us give a loose to pleasure 

Mamma and I went to see the old lady last night, — Lady 
Elgin an honest, grim, big, clever old Scotch lady, well read 
and good to talk to, dealing in religions of many denomina- 
tions, and having established in her house as a sort of direc- 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 53 

tor, Mr. C. one of the heads of the Irvingites a clever, shifty, 
sneaking man. I wish I had had your story of Manning ; 
that would have been conversation, but your note didn't ar- 
rive till this morning. Thank you, and I hope you are very 
well 

I hope you will like good old Miss Agnes Berry ; I am 
sure you will, and shall be glad that you belong to that kind 
and polite set of old ladies and worthy gentlemen. Mr. 
Williams too, will approve of them, I should think. I don't 
know any better company than Foley Wilmot and Poodle 
Byng. Pass quickly Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednes- 
day. Shall I let Kensington, with ten beds, to an Exhibition- 
seeing party and live alone ? Will you take a lodger who 
will lend you a fly to go to the parties which you will be 
continually frequenting ? Ah ! that would be pleasant. 

My cousin Charlotte was much better yesterday, thank 
God, and her mother quiet. I have been visiting the sick 
here, — one, two, three, every day. I want to begin to write 
again very much ; my mighty mind is tired of idleness, and 
ill employs the intervals of rest. 

W. M. T. 



and I are going out for a little ride in half an hour, so 



that I have plenty of time to send a letter to you. The place 
here is a neat little thing enough, small and snug, with a 
great train of inaison and not more than twenty thousand 
acres about the house ; nothing compared to Gulston, Rum- 
bleberry, Crumply, and most of the places to which one is 
accustomed, but very well, you understand me, for people of 
a certain rank of life. One can be happy with many Httle 
ddsagrements, when one sees that the people are determined 

to be civil to one. Nobody here but and the Duchess, 

who don't show at breakfast, and — no, I wont go on writing 



154 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

this dreary nonsense, which was begun before I went out for a 
long walk and then for a ride. Both were exceedingly pleas- 
ant, for there is a beautiful park and gardens and conserva- 
tories, and only to see the ducks on the water, and the great 
big lime trees in the avenue, gives one the keenest sensual 
pleasure. The wind seemed to me to blow floods of health 
into my lungs, and the man I was walking with was evi- 
dently amused by the excitement and enjoyment of his com- 
panion. I recollect His Reverence at Clevedon being sur- 
prised at my boyish delight on a similar occasion. It is 
worth living in London, surely, to enjoy the country when 
you get to it ; and when you go to a man's grounds and get 
into raptures concerning them, pointing their beauties out 
with eagerness and feeling, perhaps the host gets a better 
opinion of his own havings and belongings. 

At this juncture I actually fell asleep, being quite tired 
out with walking, riding, and fresh air. What a gale there 
is blowing, and what a night your sister must have had to 
cross ! My lady has been uncommonly gracious, and has 
one of the sweetest voices I ever heard, " an excellent 
thing in woman." But I am not at my ease yet with her, 
and tremble rather before her. She is in a great state of 
suffering, I can see though, and fancy I understand the 
reason thereof. 

I rode with Lord Ashburton to Alresford, where I heard 
the magistrates' sessions held, and saw the squires arrive. 
It was very good fun for me. There was a sentimental case, 
which somebody would have liked ; as handsome a young 
couple as I ever saw — the girl really beautiful, and the man a 
deceiver, — and, and, — there was a little baby, and he was 
condemned to pay i /6 a week for keeping it ; but Lord what 
it would be to live in that dreary old country town ! It is 
good to see though, and to listen to the squires, and the talk 
about hunting, and the scandal, and admire the wonderful 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 55 

varieties of men. We met the little girl and the baby trudg- 
ing home, sometime afterwards, and the curate in her wake. 
There seemed no sort of shame about the business, nor love, 
nor tears, as far as one could see ; not a halfpenny worth of 
romance ; only when the child squalled, the mother, who was 
very fond of it, nursed it, and that made a pretty picture. 

What a stupid letter I am writing ! I have nothing to 
say ; I left my portmanteau in London, at the station, and 
was obliged to dine in a frock coat. I hadn't enough clothes 
to my bed, and couldn't sleep much 



A Fragfment 



& 



From the Grange. 
The Bishop and a number of clergy are coming here to- 
morrow and so I stay on for a couple of days. Yesterday it 
rained without, and I was glad to remain in my room the 
greater part of the day and to make a good fire and prepare 
myself for work. But I did none ; it wouldn't come^ — sleep 
came instead, and between it and the meals and reading 
Alton Locke — the day passed away. To-day we have had 
a fine walk — to Trench's parsonage,* a pretty place 3 miles 
off, through woods of a hundred thousand colours. The 
Poet was absent but his good-natured wife came to see us ; 
— by Us I mean me. Lady Ashburton, and Miss Farrer, who 
walked as aide de camp by my lady's pony. How is it that 
I find myself humbling before her and taking a certain para- 
sitical air as all the rest do? There's something command- 
ing in the woman (she was born in 1806 you'll understand) 
and I see we all of us bow down before her. Why don't we 

* The Rev. R, C. Trench, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, was at Trinity College with 
Mr. Thackeray. 



156 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

bow down before you ma'am. Little Mrs. Taylor is the only 
one who doesn't seem to Kotoo. I like Taylor,* whose 
grandeur wears off in ten minutes, and in whom one perceives 
an extremely gentle and loving human creature I think — not 
a man to be intimate with ever, but to admire and like from a 
distance and to have a sort of artistical good will to. . . . 
We have Carlyle coming down directly the Taylors go away. 
Major Rawlinson arrives to-night. . . . I've been read- 
ing in Alton Locke — Bailie Cochrane, Keneally's Goethe — 
and a book on the decadence of La France proved by figures, 
and showing that the French are not increasing in wealth or 
numbers near so fast as the English, Prussians, Russians. 
Bailie Cochrane is an amusing fellow, amusing from his pom- 
posity and historic air ; and Alton Locke begins to be a bore, 
I think ; and Keneally's Goethe is the work of a mad-cap 
with a marvellous facility of versifying; and I should like 
Annie and Minnie to go to my dear lady on Wednesday if 
you will have them. 

* Henry Taylor, author of Philip Van Artevelde, — afterwards Sir Henry Taylor. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 57 



1852. 

March 18th, 1852, Kensington. 
My Dear Wm. : 

I have just received your kind message and melancholy 
news. Thank you for thinking that I'm interested in what 
concerns you, and sympathise in what gives you pleasure or 
grief. Well, I don't think there is much more than this to- 
day : but I recall what you have said in our many talks of 
your father, and remember the affection and respect with 
which you always regarded and spoke of him. Who would 
wish for more than honour, love, obedience and a tranquil 
end to old asre ? And so that generation which engfendered 
us passes away, and their place knows them not ; and our 
turn comes when we are to say good bye to our joys, strug- 
gles, pains, affections — and our young ones will grieve and 
be consoled for us and so on. We've lived as much in 40 as 
your good old father in his four score years, don't you think 
so ? — and how awfully tired and lonely we are. I picture to 
myself the placid face of the kind old father with all that 
trouble and doubt over — his life expiring with supreme bless- 
ings for you all — for you and Jane and unconscious little 
Magdalene prattling and laughing at life's threshold ; and 
know that you will be tenderly cheered and consoled by the 
good man's blessing for the three of you ; while yet, but a 
minute, but yesterday, but all eternity ago, he was here lov- 
ing and suffering. I go on with the paper before me — I 
know there's nothing to say — but I assure you of my sym- 
pathy and that I am yours my dear old friend aff'tly, 

W. M. Thackeray. 



158 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



Clarendon Hotel, New York. 

Tuesday, 23 Dec. [1852] 
My Dear Lady: 

I send you a little line and shake your hand across the 
water. God bless you and yours. 

The passage is nothing, now it is over ; I am rather 
ashamed of gloom and disquietude about such a trifling 
journey. I have made scores of new acquaintances and 
lighted on my legs as usual. I didn't expect to like people 
as I do, but am agreeably disappointed and find many most 
pleasant companions, natural and good ; natural and well 
read and well bred too ; and I suppose am none the worse 
pleased because everybody has read all my books and 
praises my lectures ; (I preach in a Unitarian Church, and 
the parson comes to hear me. His name is Mr. Bellows, it 
isn't a pretty name), and there are 2,000 people nearly who 
come, and the lectures are so well liked that it is probable I 
shall do them over again. So really there is a chance of 
making a pretty little sum of money for old age, imbecility, 
and those young ladies afterwards. 

Had Lady Ashburton told you of the moving tables ? 
Try, six or seven of you, a wooden table without brass cas- 
tors ; sit round it, lay your hands flat on it, not touching each 
other, and in half an hour or so perhaps it will begin to turn 
round and round. It is the most wonderful thing, but I 
have tried twice in vain since I saw it and did it at Mr. Ban- 
croft's. I have not been into fashionable society yet, what 
they call the upper ten thousand here, but have met very 
likeable of the lower sort. On Sunday I went into the 
country, and there was a great rosy jolly family of sixteen or 
eighteen people, round a great tea-table ; and the lady of 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 59 

the house told me to make myself at home — remarking my 
bashfulness, you know — and said, with a jolly face, and 
twinkling of her little eyes, " Lord bless you, we know you 
all to pieces!" and there was sitting by me O! such a 
pretty girl, the very picture of Rubens's second wife, and 
face and figure. Most of the ladies, all except this family, 
are as lean as greyhounds ; they dress prodigiously fine, 
taking for their models the French actresses, I think, of the 
Boulevard theatres. 

Broadway is miles upon miles long, a rush of life such as 
I never have seen ; not so full as the Strand, but so rapid. 
The houses are always being torn down and built up again, 
the railroad cars drive slap into the midst of the city. There 
are barricades and scaffoldings banging everywhere. I have 
not been into a house except the fat country one, but some- 
thinof new is beinsf done to it, and the hammeringfs are clat- 
tering in the passage, or a wall, or steps are down, or the 
family is going to move. Nobody is quiet here, no more am 
I. The rush and restlessness pleases me, and I like, for a 
little, the dash of the stream. I am not received as a god, 
which I like too. There is one paper which goes on every 
morning saying I am a snob, and I don't say no. Six people 
were reading it at breakfast this morning, and the man oppo- 
site me popped it under the table cloth. But the other pa- 
pers roar with approbation. " Criez, beuglez O ! Jour- 
naux" They don't understand French though, that bit of 
Beranger will hang fire. Do you remember yUd stir cette 
boule &c. ? Yes, my dear sister remembers. God Almighty 
bless her, and all she loves. 

I may write next Saturday to Chesham Place ; you 
will go and carry my love to those ladies won't you ? Here 
comes in a man with a paper I hadn't seen ; I must cut out a 
bit just as the actors do, but then I think you will like it, and 
that is why I do it. There was a very rich biography about 



l6o LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

me in one of the papers the other day, with an account of a 
servant, maintained in the splendour of his menial decorations 
— Poor old John whose picture is in Pendennis. And I have 
filled my paper, and I shake my dear lady's hand across the 
roaring sea, and I know that you will be glad to know that I 
prosper and that I am well, and that I am yours 

W. M. T. 



{Cutting from the New York Evening Post enclosed in the 

foregoing.l 

The building was crowded to its utmost capacity with 
the celebrities of literature and fashion in this metropolis, all 
of whom, we believe, left, perfectly united in the opinion that 
they never remembered to have spent an hour more delight- 
fully in their lives, and that the room in which they had been 
receiving so much enjoyment, was very badly lighted. We 
fear, also, that it was the impression of the many who were 
disappointed in getting tickets, that the room was not spa- 
cious enough for the purpose in which it has been appropriated. 

Every one who saw Mr. Thackeray last evening for the 
first, seemed to have had their impressions of his appearance 
and manner of speech, corrected. Few expected to see so 
large a man ; he is gigantic, six feet four at least ; few ex- 
pected to see so old a person ; his hair appears to have kept 
silvery record over fifty years ; and then there was a notion 
in the minds of many that there must be something dashing 
and "fast" in his appearance, whereas his costume was per- 
fectly plain ; the expression of his face grave and earnest ; his 
address perfectly unaffected, and such as we might expect to 
meet with, in a well bred man somewhat advanced in years. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. l6l 

His elocution, also, surprised those who had derived their 
impressions from the English journals. His voice is a superb 
tenor, and possesses that pathetic tremble which is so effec- 
tive in what is called emotive eloquence, while his delivery 
was as well suited to the communication he had to make as 
could well have been imagined. 

His enunciation is perfect. Every word he uttered might 
have been heard in the remotest quarters of the room, yet he 
scarcely lifted his voice above a colloquial tone. The most 
striking feature in his whole manner was the utter absence of 
affectation of any kind. He did not permit himself to appear 
conscious that he was an object of peculiar interest in the 
audience, neither was he guilty of the greater error of not 
appearing to care whether they were interested in him or not. 
In other words, he inspired his audience with a respect for 
him, as a man proportioned to the admiration, which his 
books have inspired for him as an author. 

Of the lecture itself, as a work of art, it would be difficult 
to speak too strongly. Though written with the utmost sim- 
plicity and apparent inattention to effects, it overflowed with 
every characteristic of the author's happiest vein. There has 
been nothing written about Swift so clever, and if we except 
Lord Orrery's silly letters, we suspect we might add nothing 
so unjust. 

Though suitable credit was given to Swift's talents, all of 
which were admirably characterized, yet when he came to 
speak of the moral side of the dean's nature he saw nothing 
but darkness. 



1 62 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



1853- 

Direct Clarendon Hotel New York. 

Philadelphia. 
21 to 23 January. 

My dear lady's kind sad letter gave me pleasure, melan- 
choly as it was. . . . 

At present, I incline to come to England in June or July 
and get ready a new set of lectures, and bring them back with 
me. That second course will enable me to provide for the 
children and their mother finally and satisfactorily, and my 
mind will be easier after that, and I can sing Nunc Diniittis 
without faltering. There is money-making to try at, to be 
sure, and ambition, — I mean in public life ; perhaps that might 
interest a man, but not novels, nor lectures, nor fun, any more. 
I don't seem to care about these any more, or for praise, or 
for abuse, or for reputation of that kind. That literary play 
is played out, and the puppets going to be locked up for good 
and all. 

Does this melancholy come from the circumstance that I 
have been out to dinner and supper every night this week ? 
O ! I am tired of shaking hands with people, and acting the 
lion business night after night. Everybody is introduced and 
shakes hands. I know thousands of Colonels, professors, 
editors, and what not, and walk the streets guiltily, knowing 
that I don't know 'em, and trembling lest the man opposite 
to me is one of my friends of the day before. I believe I am 
popular, except at Boston among the newspaper men who 
fired into me, but a great favorite with the motide there and 
elsewhere. Here in Philadelphia it is all praise and kindness. 
Do you know there are 500,000 people in Philadelphia ? I 
daresay you had no idea thereof, and smile at the idea of 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 63 

there being a monde here and at Boston and New York. 
Early next month I begin at Washington and Bahimore, then 
D. V. to New Orleans, back to New York by Mississippi and 
Ohio, if the steamers don't blow up, and if they do, you know 
I am easy. What a weary, weary letter I am writing to you. 
. . . Have you heard that I have found Beatrix at New 
York ? I have basked in her bright eyes, but Ah, me ! I 
don't care for her, and shall hear of her marrying a New York 
buck with a feeling of perfect pleasure. She is really as like 
Beatrix, as that fellow William and I met was like Costigan. 
She has a dear woman of a mother upwards of fifty-five, 
whom I like the best, I think, and think the handsomest, — a 
sweet lady. What a comfort those dear Elliots are to me ; 
I have had but one little letter from J. E. full of troubles too. 
She says you have been a comfort to them too. I can't live 
without the tenderness of some woman ; and expect when I 
am sixty I shall be marrying a girl of eleven or twelve, inno- 
cent, barley-sugar-loving, in a pinafore. 

They came and interrupted me as I was writing this, two 
days since ; and I have been in public almost ever since. 
The lectures are enormously suivies and I read at the rate of 
a pound a minute nearly. The curious thing is, that I think 
I improve in the reading ; at certain passages a sort of emo- 
tion springs up, I begin to understand how actors feel af- 
fected over and over again at the same passages of the play ; 
— they are affected off the stage too, I hope I shan't be. 

Crowe is my immensest comfort ; I could not live without 
someone to take care of me, and he is the kindest and most 
affectionate henchman ever man had. I went to see Pierce 
Butler yesterday, Fanny's husband. I thought she would 
like me to see the children if I could, and I asked about 
them particularly, but they were not shown. I thought of 
good Adelaide coming to sing to you when you were ill. I 
may like everyone who is kind to you, mayn't I ? . . . 



1 64 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

What for has Lady Ashburton never written to me ? I am 
writing this with a new gold pen in such a fine gold case. 
An old gentleman gave it to me yesterday, a white-headed 
old philosopher and political economist. There's something 
simple in the way these kind folks regard a man ; they read 
our books as if we were Fielding, and so forth. The other 
night some men were talking of Dickens and Bulwer as if they 
were equal to Shakespeare, and I was pleased to find myself 
pleased at hearing them praised. The prettiest girl in Phil- 
adelphia, poor soul, has read Vanity Fair twelve times. I 
paid her a great big compliment yesterday, about her good 
looks of course, and she turned round delighted to her friend 
and said, " Ai mosi talhii," xhzt is something like the pro- 
nunciation. Beatrix has an adorable pronunciation, and uses 
little words, which are much better than wit. And what do 
you think ? One of the prettiest girls in Boston is to be put 
under my charge to go to a marriage at Washington next 
week. We are to travel together all the way alone — only, 
only, I'm not going. Young people when they are engaged 
here, make tours alone ; fancy what the British Mrs. Grundy 
would say at such an idea ! 

There was a young quakeress at the lecture last night, 
listening about Fielding. Lord ! Lord. how pretty she 
was ! There are hundreds of such everywhere, airy looking 
little beings, with magnolia — no not magnolia, what is that 
white flower you make bouquets of,-^camilla or camelia — com- 
plexions, and lasting not much longer. . . . God bless 
you and your children, write to me sometimes and farewell. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 65 

\To Miss Perry']. 

Baltimore, — Washington. 

Feby. 7th. to 14th. '53. 

Although I have written a many letters to Chesham Place 
not one has gone to the special address of my dear K. E. P., 
and if you please I will begin one now for half an hour before 
going to lecture i. In another hour that dreary business of 
" In speaking of the English Humourous writers of the last, 
etc." will begin,— and the wonder to me is that the speaker 
once in the desk (to-day it is to be a right down pulpit in a 
Un.iversalist Church and no mistake), gets interested in the 
work, makes the points, thrills with emotion and indignation 
at the right place, and has a little sensation whilst the work 
is going on ; but I can't go on much longer, my conscience 
revolts at the quackery. Now I have seen three great cities, 
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, I think I like them all 
mighty well they seem to me not so civilized as our Lon- 
don, but more so than Manchester and Liverpool. At Bos- 
ton is very good literate company indeed ; it is like Edin- 
burgh for that, — a vast amount of toryism and donnishness 
everywhere. That of New York the simplest and least pre- 
tentious ; it suffices that a man should keep a fine house, 
give parties, and have a daughter, to get all the world to him. 
And what struck me, that whereas on my first arrival, I was 
annoyed at the uncommon splendatiousness 

— here the letter was interrupted on Monday at Balti- 
more, and is now taken up again on Thursday at Washing- 
ton — never mind what struck me, it was only that after 
a while you get accustomed to the splendor of the dresses 
and think them right and proper. Use makes everything so ; 



1 66 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

who knows ? you will be coming out in Empire ruffs and high 
waists by the time I come home. I have not been able to 
write a word since I came here on Tuesday ; my time has 
been spent in seeing and calling upon lions. Our minister 
Mr. Crampton is very jolly and good-natured. Yesterday 
he had a dinner at five for all the legation, and they all came 
very much bored to my lecture. To-day I dined with Mr. 
Everett ; with the President it may be next week. The 
place has a Wiesbaden air — there are politics and gaieties 
straggling all over it. More interruption and this one has 
lasted three days. Book indeed ! How is one to write a 
book when it is next to impossible to get a quiet half hour ? 
Since I wrote has come a short kind letter from dear old 
Kinglake, who continues to give bad accounts from Chesham 
Place. God bless all there, say I. I wish I was by to be 
with my dear friends in grief, I know they know how to sym- 
pathize (although we are spoiled by the world, we have no 
hearts you know &c. &c. ; but then it may happen that the 
high flown romantic people are wrong, and that we love our 
friends as well as they do). I don't pity anybody who leaves 
the world, not even a fair young girl in her prime ; I pity 
those remaining. On her journey, if it pleases God to send 
her, depend on it there's no cause for grief, that's but an 
earthly condition. Out of our stormy life, and brought 
nearer the Divine light and warmth, there must be a serene 
climate. Can't you fancy sailing into the calm ? Would you 
care about going on the voyage, only for the dear souls left 
on the other shore ? but we shan't be parted from them no 
doubt though they are from us. Add a little more intelli- 
gence to that which we possess even as we are, and why 
shouldn't we be with our friends though ever so far off? . . 
Why presently, the body removed, shouldn't we person- 
ally be anywhere at will — properties of Creation, like the 
electric something (spark is it ?) that thrills all round the 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 167 

globe simultaneously ? and if round the globe why not Uber- 
allf and the body being removed or else where disposed of 
and developed, sorrow and its opposite, crime and the re- 
verse, ease and disease, desire and dislike &c. go along with 
the body — a lucid Intelligence remains, a Perception ubiqui- 
tous. Alonday. I was interrupted a dozen times yesterday 
in the course of these profitless Schwdrmereien. — There's 
no rest here for pilgrims like me. Have I told you on the 
other side that I'm doing a good business at Baltimore and a 
small select one here ? the big-wigs all come and are pleased ; 
all the legations and old Scott the unsuccessful candidate for 
the Presidency &c. ? It is well to have come. I shall go 
hence to Richmond and Charleston and then who knows 
whither? not to New Orleans, I think the distance is too 
great. I can't go a thousand miles fishing for half as many 
pounds. Why not come back and see all the dear faces at 
home ? I try and think of something to say about this coun- 
try ; all I have remarked I could put down in two pages. 
Where's the eager observation and ready pencil of five years 
ago ? I have not made a single sketch. The world passes 
before me and I don't care — Is it a weary heart or is it a 
great cold I have got in my nose which stupefies me utterly ? 
I won't inflict any more megrims upon you, 

from your affectionate friend and 
brother 

W. M. T. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



[To Mrs. Elliot and her sister Miss Perry. 1 

March 3rd. 1853. 
Richmond, Virginia. 
Address the 

Clarendon — New York. 

Fragment. 

I am sfettino; so sick and ashamed of the confounded old 
lectures that I wonder I have the courage to go on deliver- 
ing them. I shan't read a single review of them when they 
are published ; anything savage said about them will serve 
them right. They are popular enough here. The two pres- 
idents at Washington came to the last, and in this pretty lit- 
tle town the little Atheneum Hall was crowded so much that 
its a pity I had not hired a room twice as big ; but _;^25oo is 
all I shall make out of them. Well that is ^200 a year in 
this country and an immense comfort for the chicks. — Crowe 
has just come out from what might have been and may be 
yet a dreadful scrape. He went into a slave market and be- 
gan sketching ; and the people rushed on him savagely and 
obliged him to quit. Fancy such a piece of imprudence. It 
may fall upon his chief, who knows, and cut short his popu- 
larity. 

The negroes don't shock me, or excite my compassionate 
feelings at all ; they are so grotesque and happy that I can't 
cry over them. The little black imps are trotting and grin- 
ning about the streets, women, workmen, waiters, all well fed 
and happy. The place the merriest little place and the most 
picturesque I have seen in America, and on Saturday I go to 
Charlestown — shall I go thence to Havannah ? who knows. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 169 

I should like to give myself a week's holiday, without my 
demd lecture box. Shake every one by the hand that asks 
about me. 

I am yours always — O ! you kind friends 

W. M. T. 



\To Miss Perry']. 

Savannah, Georgia, — [1855] 

Feast of St. Valentine. 

This welcome day brought me a nice long letter from K. 
E. P., and she must know that I write from the most com- 
fortable quarters I have ever had in the United States. In a 
tranquil old city, wide-streeted, tree-planted, with a few cows 
and carriages toiling through the sandy road, a few happy 
negroes sauntering here and there, a red river with a tran- 
quil little fleet of merchant-men taking in cargo, and tranquil 
ware-houses barricaded with packs of cotton, — no row, no 
tearing northern bustle, no ceaseless hotel racket, no crowds 
drinking at the bar, — a snug little languid audience of three 
or four hundred people, far too lazy to laugh or applaud ; a 
famous good dinner, breakfast etc, and leisure all the morn- 
ing to think and do and sleep and read as I like. The only 
place I say in the States where I can get these comforts — all 
free gratis— is in the house of my friend Andrew Low of the 
great house of A. Low and Co., Cotton Dealers, brokers, 
Merchants — what's the word ? Last time I was here he was 
a widower with two daughters in England, about whom — and 
other two daughters — there was endless talk between us. 
Now there is a pretty wife added to the establishment, and a 
little daughter number three crowing in the adjoining nursery. 
They are tremendous men these cotton merchants. 



170 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

When I had finished at Charleston I went off to a queer 
little rustic city called Augusta — a great broad street 2 miles 
long — old quaint looking shops — houses with galleries — 
ware-houses — trees — cows and negroes strolling about the 
side walks — plank roads — a happy dirty tranquility generally 
prevalent. It lies 130 miles from Charleston. You take 8^ 
hours to get there by the railway, about same time and dis- 
tance to come here, over endless plains of swampy pine- 
lands — a village or two here and there in a clearing. I 
brought away a snug little purse from snug little Augusta, 
though I had a rival — A Wild man, lecturing in the very 
same hall : I tell you it is not a dignified mdtier, that which 
I pursue. 

What is this about the Saturday Review ? After giving 
Vernon Harcourt 2/6 to send me the first 5 numbers, and 
only getting No. i, it is too bad they should assault me — and 
for what? My lecture is rather extra loyal whenever the 
Queen is mentioned, — and the most applauded passage in 
them I shall have the honour of delivering to-night in the 
Lecture on George II, where the speaker says " In laughing 
at these old-world follies and ceremonies shall we not ac- 
knowledge the change of to-day ? As the mistress of St. 
James passes me now I salute the sovereign, wise, moderate, 
exemplary of life, the good mother, the good wife, the accom- 
plished Lady, the enlightened friend of Art, the tender sym- 
pathizer in her people's glories and sorrows." 

I can't say more, can I ? and as for George III, I leave off 
just with the people on the crying point. And I never for 
one minute should think that my brave old Venables would 
hit me ; or if he did that he hadn't good cause for it. 

Forster's classification delights me. It's right that men 
of such ability and merit should get government recognition 
and honourable public employ. It is a compliment to all of 
us when one receives such promotion. As for me I have pes- 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 71 

tered you with my account of dollars and cents, and it is quite 
clear that Kings or Laws cannot do anything so well for me 
as these jaws and this pen — please God they are allowed to 
wag a little longer. I wish I did not read about your illness 
and weakness in that letter. Ah, me ! many and many a time 
every day do I think of you all. 

Enter a servant (black) with the card of Bishop El- 
liott 

If you are taking a drive some day, do go and pay a visit 
of charity to my good cook and house-keeper Gray, and say 
you have heard of me, and that I am very well and making 
plenty of money and that Charles is well and is the greatest 
comfort to me. It will comfort the poor woman all alone in 
poor 36 yonder. What charming letters Annie writes me 
with exquisite pretty turns now and then. St. Valentine 
brought me a delightful letter from her too, and from the dear 
old mother; and whether it's the comfort of this house, or the 
pleasure of having an hour's chat with you, or the sweet clean 
bed I had last night and undisturbed rest and good breakfast, 
— altogether I think I have no right to grumble at my lot and 
am very decently happy, don't you ? 

1 6th Feb. My course is for Macon, Montgomery and 
New Orleans ; no Havannah, the dollars forbid. From N. O. 
I shall go up the Mississippi, D. V., to St. Louis and Cin- 
cinnati, and ye who write will address care of J. G. King's 
Sons, New York, won't you ? 

Yours afft. 

W. M. T. 



172 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

An imaginary letter from New York.* 

September 5, 1848. 
Dear Madam : — 

It seems to me a long time since I had the honour of see- 
ing you. I shall be glad to have some account of your health. 
We made a beautiful voyage of 13^ days, and reached this 
fine city yesterday. The entrance of the bay is beautiful ; 
magnificent v^roods of the Susquehannah stretch down to the 
shore, and from Hoboken lighthouse to Vancouver's Island, 
the bay presents one brilliant blaze of natural and commercial 
loveliness. Hearing that Titmarsh was on board the steamer, 
the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of New York came down to 
receive us, and the batteries on Long Island fired a salute. 
General Jackson called at my hotel, (the Astor house) I found 
him a kind old man, though he has a wooden leg and takes a 
great deal of snuff. Broadway has certainly disappointed me 
— it is nothing to be compared to our own dear Holborn Hill. 
But the beautiful range of the Allegheney mountains, which 
I see from my windows, and the roar of the Niagara Cataract, 
which empties itself out of the Mississippi into the Oregon 
territory, have an effect, which your fine eye for the pictu- 
resque, and keen sense of the beautiful and the natural would 
I am sure lead you to appreciate. 

The oysters here are much larger than ours, and the can- 
vass backed ducks, are reckoned, and indeed are, a delicacy. 
The house where Washington was born is still shown, but 
the General I am informed, is dead, much regretted. The 

* This letter, the only one of those in the collection which has been made public before, 
was printed by permission in the Orphan of P'tTnlico, a little collection of Thackeray's -miscel- 
laJiea and drawings published in 1876. As it will be new to most readers, however, it has been 
thought best to retain it ; and it is placed here simply to be in company with the real American 
letters. The drawing of the Negro, however, which accompanied it also in the Orphan o/Pim- 
lico, seems to have been an actual sketch during one of the American visits. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



173 



clergy here is both numerous and respected, and the Arch- 
bishop of New York is a most venerable and dehghtful pre- 
late ; whose sermons are however a little long. The ladies 
are without exception the — But here the first gong sounds for 
dinner, and the black slave who waits on me, comes up and 
says, " Massa, hab only five minutes for dinnah." " Make 
haste, git no pumpkin pie else," so unwillingly I am obliged 
to break off my note and to subscribe myself, 

My dear Madame 

Your very faithful servt, 

W. M. Thackeray. 




174 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 



[1854] 



I hope you will not object to hear that I am quite well 
this morning. I should have liked to shake hands with 
H. before his departure, but I was busy writing at the 
hour when he said he was going, and fell sound asleep here 
last night, after a very modest dinner, not waking till near 
midnight, when it was too late to set off to the Paddington 
Station. 

What do you think I have done to-day ? I have sent in 
my resignation to Punch. There appears in next Punch an 

article, so wicked, I think, by poor that upon my word 

I don't think I ought to pull any longer in the same boat 
with such a savage little Robespierre. The appearance of 
this incendiary article put me in such a rage, that I could 
only cool myself by a ride in the Park ; and I should very 
likely have reported myself in Portman Street, but I remem- 
bered how you had Miss Prince to luncheon, and how I 
should be de trop. Now I am going to work the rest of the 
middle of the day until dinner time, when I go to see Le 
Prophete again ; but it would please me very much, if you 
please, to hear that you were pretty well. 

Always faithfully de Madame le seyvitetir devoud 

W. M. T. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 75 



The letters which have been chosen for publication 
end here. During the many years that they have re- 
mained in my possession no one has read them out of 
my own family, with the exception of Mr. Thackeray's 
beloved daughter, Mrs. Ritchie; until these last few 
months, when two or three of these letters were read 
by the friends whom I consulted as to their suitability 
for publication. As my own life draws to a close, I 
still look back to the confidence and affection with 
which their writer honoured me, with gratitude too 
deep for words. The record of these few years of his 
life, given by his own hand in every varied mood, will 
best describe him as he was and as I so well remem- 
ber him ; but my friend Kate Perry's charming recol- 
lections cannot fail to be read with eeneral interest. 



&' 



Jane Octavia Brookfield. 



In addition to the passages quoted from Miss Perry, 
I give two slight anecdotes of my own early acquaintance : 



* 
* * 



When, soon after our 
marriage, Mr. Brookfield 
introduced his early col- 
lege friend, Mr. Thackeray, 
to me, he brought him one 
day unexpectedly to dine 
with us. There was, fortunate- 
ly, a good plain dinner, but I 
was young and shy enough to 
feel embarrassed because we had 
no sweets, and I privately sent 
my maid to the nearest confectioner's 
to buy a dish of tartlets, which I thought 
would give a finish to our simple meal. When 
they were placed before me, I timidly offered our guest a 
small one, saying, ' Will you have a tartlet, Mr. Thackeray ? ' 
' I will, but I'll have a two-penny one, if you please,' he an- 
swered, so beamngly, that we all laughed, and my shyness 
disappeared. 




-^r^ 



On another occasion, also very early in my friendship 
with Mr. Thackeray, he was at our house one evening with 
a few other intimate friends, when the conversation turned 
on court circulars, and their sameness day after day. A few 
samples were given : ' So-and-so had the honor of joining 
Her Majesty's dinner party with other lofty and imposing 
personages,' invariably ending with Dr. Pretorius. ' By the 
way, who is Dr. Pretorius ? ' somebody asked. A slight 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. I "J J 

pause ensued, when a voice began solemnly singing the Na- 
tional Anthem, ending each verse with. 



" God save our gracious Queen, 
Send her victorious, happy and glorious, 
Dr. Pretorius — God save the Queen." 

This was Mr. Thackeray, who had been sitting perfectly 
silent and rather apart from those who were talking, and had 
not appeared to notice what was said. 



SOME EXTRACTS FROM MISS KATE PERRY'S RECOLLEC- 
TIONS OF MR. THACKERAY. 

My acquaintance with Mr. Thackeray began at Brighton, 
where I was staying with my eldest brother, William Perry. 
In most cases there is a prelude to friendship — at first it is a 
delicate plant, with barely any root, gradually throwing out 
tender green leaves and buds, and then full-blown flowers — 
the root in the meanwhile taking firm hold of the earth — and 
cruel is the frost or cutting wind which destroys it. But Mr. 
Thackeray and I went through no gradations of growth in 
our friendship ; it was more like Jack's bean-stalk in a pan- 
tomime, which rushed up sky-high without culture, and, 
thank God, so remained till his most sad and sudden end. 



In the earliest days of our friendship be brought his morn- 
ing work to read to me in the evening ; he had just com- 
menced " Vanity Fair," and was living at the Old Ship Inn, 



178 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

where he wrote some of the first numbers. He often then 
said to me : " I wonder whether this will take, the pubHshers 
accept it, and the world read it ? " I remember answering 
him that I had no reliance upon my own critical powers 
in literature ; but that I had written to my sister, Mrs. Fred- 
erick Elliot, and said, " I have made a great friendship with 
one of the principal contributors of Punch — Mr. Thackeray ; 
he is now writing a novel, but cannot hit upon a name for it. 
I may be wrong, but it seems to me the cleverest thing I 
ever read. The first time he dined with us I was fearfully 
alarmed at him. The next day we walked- in Chichester 
Park, when he told all about his little girls, and of his great 
friendship with the Brookfields, and I told him about you 
and Chesham Place." When he heard this, and my opinion 
of his novel, he burst out laughing, and said : " Ah ! Ma- 
demoiselle (as he always called me), it is not small beer ; but 
I do not know whether it will be palatable to the London 
folks." He told me, some time afterward, that, after ransack- 
ing his brain for a name for his novel, it came upon him un- 
awares, in the middle of the night, as if a voice had whis- 
pered, " Vanity Fair." He said, " I jumped out of bed, and 
ran three times round my room, uttering as I went, ' Vanity 
Fair, Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair.' " 



Afterward we frequently met at the Miss Berrys', where 
night after night were assembled all the wit and beauty of 
that time. There was such a charm about these sratherines 
of friends, that hereafter we may say : " There is no salon 
now to compare to that of the Miss Berrys', in Curzon 
Street." My sister and I, with our great admiration and 
friendship for Mr. Thackeray, used to think that the Miss 
Berrys at first did not thoroughly appreciate or understand 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 79 

him ; but one evening, when he had left early, they said they 
had perceived, for the first time, "what a very remarkable 
man he was." He became a constant and most welcome 
visitor at their house ; they read his works with delight, and, 
whenever they were making up a pleasant dinner, used to 
say : " We must have Thackeray." It was at one of these 
dinners that Miss Berry astonished us all by saying she 
" had never read Jane Austen's novels, until lately someone 
had lent them to her. But she could not get on with them ; 
they were totally uninteresting to her — long-drawn-out details 
of very ordinary people," and she found the books so tedious 
that she could not understand their having obtained such a 
celebrity as they had done. " Thackeray and Balzac," she 
added (Thackeray being present), " write with great min- 
uteness, but do so with a brilliant pen." Thackeray made 
two bows of gratitude (one, pointing to the ground, for 
Balzac). Those who love to pore over old memoirs will 
find Miss Berry's name associated with Horace Walpole's ; 
but when they met he was very old, and she was very young. 
She accepted his admiration with pride and gratitude, but 
had no aspiration to be the mistress of Strawberry Hill. 

Miss Agnes Berry adored her elder sister ; she had 
considerable clearness and acuteness of perception, and 
Thackeray always maintained she was the more naturally 
gifted of the two sisters. In her youth she was a pretty, 
charming girl, with whom Gustavus Adolphus danced at one 
of his court balls, and was admired and envied by the other 
ladies present. These two remarkable women lived together 
for nearly ninety years. 



Thackeray's love of children was one of the strongest feel- 
ings of his heart. In a little poem, "The Golden Pen," pub- 



l8o LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

ished in his "Miscellanies," which is, perhaps, the truest 
portrait of him which has ever appeared, he writes : 

" There's something, even in his bitterest mood, 
That melts him at the sight of infanthood ; 
Thank God that he can love the pure and good." 

This sympathy with the little ones was not only proved 
by his immense devotion to his own most gifted children, but 
extended to the little " gutter child," as the trim board-school 
girl of to-day was called then. For this waif of society he 
felt the tenderest pity and interest. He used often to visit a 
school where my dear sister had collected nearly three hun- 
dred of these neglected children, feeding, teaching, and cloth- 
ing them, and, with the help of other kind souls, preparing 
them in some degree to fight the battle of life, in which there 
are many crosses — but few Victoria ones. Turning his steps 
one day to this large, rough-looking school-room, he entered 
it just as these little Arabs were commencing, with more 
heartiness than melody, Faber's beautiful hymn : 

" O Paradise ! O Paradise ! 

Who doth not crave for rest ? 
Who would not seek the happy land, 
Where they that love are blest ? '' 

He turned to the lady superintending them, and said, " I 
cannot stand this any longer — my spectacles are getting very 
dim." 

One day, some few years later, I had been engaged in 
summing up the monthly expenses of the same school, and 
had left open on my writing-table, the much scored-over Soup 
Kitchen book. Mr. Thackeray was shown into the room, and 
was for some minutes alone before I joined him. After he 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. l8l 

left, I resumed my labors, and found on the first page of the 
book a beautifully executed pen-and-ink sketch of little chil- 
dren crowding round the school-mistress, who was ladling 
out, into mugs of various sizes and shapes, the daily meal of 
soup, above which was written, " Suffer little children, and 
forbid them not." 

Another day, I found a sovereign under a paper contain- 
ing the names of some friends of the school who had joined 
in a subscription to give the children a day's holiday in the 
country. I said to my servant, " Mr. Thackeray has been 
here," and found from him this was the case. I knew my 
instinct was right, that it was. his hand which had placed the 
money there. His charity was very wide, in the fullest sense 
of the word. He has been known to discover, in some re- 
mote corner, the hapless artist or dramatist who in his palmy 
days had not thought much of that night — old age — " when 
no more work can be done." Thackeray would mount the 
many steps leading to the desolate chamber — administer 
some little rebuke on the thoughtlessness of not laying by 
some of the easily gained gold of youth or manhood, and 
slipping, as in one instance, into an old blotting-book, a ;^ioo 
note, would hurry away. 

" I never saw him do it," said poor old P -. " I was 

very angry because he said I had been a reckless old goose — 
and then a ;^ioo falls out of my writing-book. God bless 
him ! " 



These good deeds would never have come to li^ht but for 
the gratitude of those who, though they had the gentle re- 
buke, received also the more than liberal help. I know he 
has been accused of extreme sensitiveness to blame, either 
about himself or his writings, but the following story proves 
that he could forgive with magnanimity and grace when 



1 82 LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 

roughly and severely handled. This once occurred at my 
sister's dinner-table. Thackeray, who was almost a daily 
visitor at her house, for some time took it into his head, to 
be announced by the name of the most noted criminal of the 
day. Our butler did this with the greatest gravity. 

On this occasion Thackeray had been asked to join some 
friends at dinner, but not arriving at the prescribed hour, the 

guests sat down without him. Among them was Mr. H , 

the author of some of the most charming books of the day. 

The conversation being more literary than otherwise, 
Thackeray (then at the very height of his fame) came under 
discussion, and, some of his greatest friends and admirers 
being present, he was spoken of with unqualified admiration. 

Mr. H was the exception, and dissented from us, in very 

unmeasured terms, in our estimate of Thackeray's character. 
Judging, he said, "from the tenor of his books, he could not 
believe how one who could dwell, as he did, on the weakness 
and absurdities and shortcomings of his fellow-creatures, 
could possess any kind or generous sympathies toward the 
human race." He concluded his severe judgment by saying 
that, " He had never met him, and hoped he never should do 
so." 

We were all so occupied by this fiery debate that we did 
not observe that, under the sobriquet of some jail-bird of the 
day, Thackeray had slipped into his chair, and heard much 
that was said, including the severe peroration. A gentle tap 

on Mr. H 's shoulder, and, in his pleasant, low voice, 

Thackeray said, " I, on the contrary, have always longed for 

the occasion when I could express, personally, to Mr. H , 

the great admiration I have always felt for him, as an author 
and a man." It is pleasant to think they became fast friends 
thereafter. 

Note. — The little sketch of the cupid [p. 183] was sent to Miss Perry unfinished as it is, as 
an acknowledgment for some grapes which she had given to one of his daughters who was not 
well. J. O. B. 



LETTERS OF THACKERAY. 1 8, 



o 



I find it difficult to check my pen from being garrulous as 
I remember the many instances of the kindness and gener- 
osity of his nature, though, at the same time, I feel how in- 
adequate it is to do justice to all his noble and delightful 
qualities. His wit and humor and playfulness were most 
observable where he was happiest and most at ease, — with 
his beloved daughters, or with his dear friends the Brook- 
fields, who were the most intimate and valued of those he 
made in middle life. I am proud to say, also, that he was 
aware of the admiration in which he was held by every mem- 
ber of my sister's home, where his ever ready sympathy in 
all our troubles and pleasures was truly appreciated — and 
when he passed away, and the place knew him no more, a 
great shadow fell upon that house. 

Kate Perry, 




INDEX 



[All letters not especially addressed to others were written to Mrs. Brook- 
field, or Mr. and Mrs. Brookfield jointly.'] 



A INSWORTH, W. H., 84. 

Alexis, the somnambulist, 56, 

57- 
Alresford, the magistrate's sessions 

at, 154- 
Ancelot, Mme., 151. 
Arlincourt, Vicomte d', 114. 
Ashburton, Lord, 154. 
Ashburton, Lady, 36, 58, 67, 97, 

IS5, iSS- 



DALTIMORE, Thackeray at, 165. 

Beauvoir, Roger de, 88. 
Bedford, the Dowager Duchess of, 

53- 

Bellows, Rev. Henry W., 158. 

Benedict, Sir Julius, 59 Ji. 

Berne, Thackeray at, 147. 

Berry, the Misses, 47, 67, 99, 104, 
1 78. 

Blenheim, Thackeray at, 31. 

Bonneval, Mme. de, 146. 

Bracebridge, Mr. and Mrs., 22. 

Brandauer, Miss, 24. 

Brighton, Thackeray at, 61. 

Brohan, Mile., 80. 

Brookfield, Rev. William Henry 
(often referred to in the letters 
by various names, as " Mr. Will- 
iams," "the Inspector," etc.), 7 



«., 23, 25, 26, T,i, 36, 37, 42, 44, 48, 
50, 60 et seq., 67, 76, 85, 86, 87, 92, 
loi, 108, 114, 117, 118, 125 ; let- 
ters to, s, 6, 8, 22, 27, 28, 30, 51, 
54, 58, 59. 7°, 129> 135, 136, 137. 
157- 

Brougham, Lord, 99. 

Brussels, Thackeray at, 9 et seq. 

Budd, Captain, 46. 

BuUar, Joseph, 22, 35, 89. 

Bullar, William, 139. 

Buller, Charles, death of, ^^. 

Butler, Pierce, 163. 

Byng, Mr., 153. 



QANTERBURY, Thackeray at, 
10. 

Carlj'le, Thomas, 34, 116, 156. 

Castlereagh, Lord and Lady, 103, 
107, 114, 123. 

Chapman, Mr., lo. 

Chasles, Mr., 77. 

Chronicle, The, Thackeray's contri- 
butions to, 29. 

Clevedon Court, 7 «., 28 «., 30. 

Colemache, Mme., 151. 

Cowper, Spencer, 56. 

Crampton, Mr., British Minister 
at Washington, 166. 

Crowe, Eyre, 58 n. 



1 86 



INDEX. 



Crowe, Mr., 6. 

Crowe, Mrs., 58 n., 67. 

Crowe, Thackeray's servant, 163. 



rjAMER, Colonel, 104. 

" David Copperfield," 54, 87. 
Davy, Lady, 46, 15. 
De Bathe, Sir Henry and Lady, 

59- 

Dejazet, Mile., 14. 

Dickens, Charles, " Reconciliation 
banquet " given to him and 
Thackeray by Forster, 5 ; Letter 
of A. H. concerning, with Thack- 
eray's comments, 7 ; Thackeray 
on, 68. 

Dilke, Charles Wentvvorth, 29. 

Dover, Thackeray at, 11, 37. 

Doyle, Richard, 133. 



gLGIN, Lady, 152. 
Ellice, Mr., 107. 

Elliot, Frederick, 142. 

Elliot, Mrs., 103, 128, 141 ; letters 
to, 168 et seq., 178. 

Elliot, Miss Hatty, 104. 

Elliotson, Dr., 73, 103. 

Elton, Sir Charles, 7 «., 28 n. 

Elton, Sir Edmund, 28 n. 

Errington, Mrs., 79. 

Evening Post, The, New York, Ex- 
tract from, on Thackeray's lect- 
ures, 160. 

Everett, Edward, 166. 

Exhibition of 185 1, 134. 



pARRER, Miss, 155. 

Fanshawe, Mrs., 48, 79. 
Fielding's Novels, Thackeray on, 
120. 



Fonblanque, Mr., 66. 
Forster, John, His " reconciliation 
banquet," 5 ; mention of, 10 and 

71. 

Fraser, Thomas, 79. 



QALIGNANFS MESSENGER, 
Thackeray's contributions to, 

36- 
Gigoux, Mr., 108. 
Gordon, Sir Alexander and Lady 

Duff, 59. 
Granville, Lady, 53. 
Gudin, Theodore, 108. 
Gudin, Mme., 80, 113. 



I^ALLAM, Henry Fitzmaurice, 
29j 3°, 59i 128 ; death of, 129. 
Hallam, Miss, 69. 
Halliday, Mr., 79. 
Heidelberg, Thackeray at, 145. 
Herbert, Mrs,, 125. 
Higgins, Matthew James (Jacob 

Omnium), 67 n. 
Hislop, Lady, 104. 
Holland, Lord, 131. 
Hotel des Pays Bas, Spa, 16 et seq. 
Howden, Lord, 105. 



JACOBS, the Wizard, 11. 

"Jane Eyre," its authorship 
attributed to Procter, 29. 
Janin, Jules, 74 et seq. 
Jones, Longueville, 36. 



J^ENYON, Mr., 129. 

Kinglake, Alexander William, 
104. 
Kingsley, Charles, 145. 



INDEX. 



187 



T AMARTINE, Alphonse de, 38. 

Lansdowne, Lord, 116. 
Leslie, the Misses, 53. 
Lind, Mme. Jennie, 59, 119. 
Literary Fund, Thackeray's dinner 

and speech at, 120 et seq. 
Louvre, the, Thackeray at, 77. 
Lovelace, Lady, 47. 
Low, Andrew, 169. 
Lucerne, Thackeray at, 149. 
Lytton, Sir Bulwer, 123. 



jy^ACAULAY, Thomas Babing- 

ton, 90, 92. 
Macdonald, Norman, 33. 
Mackenzie, Mrs. Stewart, 144. 
Maine, Henry, 117. 
Marrast, Mr., 38. 
Martchenko, Mr., 146. 
Meurice's Hotel, Paris, Thackeray 

at, 38. 
Mill, John Stuart, 98. 
Molesworth, Sir William and Lady, 

127. 
Montgomery, Mrs. Alfred, 70, 

71- 
Morgan, Captain, 53. 
Morier, Mr., 34, 63. 
Morley, Lady, 116. 
" Mysteres de Londres," a French 

play, Thackeray's description of, 

40. 



NTAPIER, Sir George, 92. 

New York, Thackeray in, 158 ; 
imaginary letter from, 172. 
Normanby, Lord, 39, 107. 



Q'BRIEN, Smith, 19. 

Orsay, the Count d', iii. 



Osy, Mme., 80. 

Oxford, Thackeray at, 31. 



pALMER, Mr., 62. 

Paris, Thackeray in, 38, 74 et 

seq., 104 et seq., 151 tf^ seq. 
Parr, Mrs., 30, 72. 
Parr, Thomas, 144. 
Pattle, Miss Virginia, 65 n., 97, 

128. 
Payne, Mrs. Brookfield's maid, 20, 

23- 

Peacock, Thomas Love, 100. 

Peel, Sir Robert and Lady, 116. 

" Pendennis," 27, 29, 42, 46, 48, 49, 
63. 65, 67, 74, 84, 97. 

Perry, Miss Kate, 55, 103 ; her 
recollections of Thackeray, 177 ; 
letters to, 168, 169. 

Perry, William, 177. 

Philadelphia, Thackeray in, 162. 

Powell, Mrs., 70. 

Prinsep, Mr. and Mrs., 65 n., 97. 

Procter, Adelaide, 29, 47, 70. 

Procter, Bryan Waller (Barry Corn- 
wall), 44, 45 n. 

Procter, Mrs., 27, 49, 53, 54, 126. 

Punch, 25 ; Thackeray resigns from, 
174. 



DOTHESAY, Lady Stuart de, 

104. 
Rawlinson, Major, 156. 
Rehda, baths of, 22. 
Rice, Spring, 136. 
Richmond, Thackeray at, 168. 
Robbins, Mrs., 72. 
Rothschild, Baron, 38. 
Royal Scots Fusiliers, Thackeray's 

visit to, 10. 
Ryde, Thackeray at, 54. 



li 



INDEX. 



CANDWICH, Lady, 107. 

Sartoris, Mrs., 61. 
Savannah, Thackeray at, 169. 
Scott, General Winfield, 167. 
Sterling, A., 59 11. 
Shell, Richard, 66. 
Simeon, Mr., 131. 
Smith, Horace, 62. 
Smith, the Misses, 62, 65 n., 73. 
Spa, Thackeray at, ts ci scq. 
Sorlain, Mr., 34. 
Sutro, Dr., 22. 



JAYLOR, Henry, 136, 156. 
Tennent, Lady, 53. 

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 
circumstances of his correspon- 
dence with Mr. and Mrs. Brook- 
field, I, 2 ; his visit to the Royal 
Scots Fusiliers in garrison, 10 ; 
his hour in Canterbury Cathe- 
dral, 11-13 ; journey to Brus- 
sels, 13 ; on Becky Sharp and 
others of his characters, 14 ; 
journey to Spa, 15 ei seq. ; on 
Titmarsh's reception at the Ho- 
tel d'York, 16 ; in the play-house 
at Spa, 18, 19 ; his notes in verse, 
25, 26; comments on " Penden- 
nis," 29 ; writes for the Chronicle, 
29 ; at Oxford and Blenheim, 
31 ; on the service in Magdalen 
Chapel, 32 ; on Charles Buller's 
death, 33 ; on "blasphemous as- 
cetism," 35 ; at Dover, 37 ; in 
Paris, 38 ; his " quarantine of 
family dinners," etc., 38 ; de- 
scription of a French play, 39 ; 
on his work and money affairs, 
43, 44 ; on Blanche Amory and 
Pendennis, 49 ; at the Reform 
banquet, 53 ; on " David Cop- 



perfield," 54 ; at Spencer Covv- 
per's dinner, 56 ; at Brighton, 
61 ; on his work on " Penden- 
nis," 65, 67 ; en Dickens, 68 ; on 
old friendships, 70 ; in Paris 
again, 74 ; visits Jules Janin, 74; 
on his artist life in Paris, 77 ; on 
a rumor of his death, 81 ; his 
poem, "A Failure," 82 ; his fear 
of loss of memory, 84 ; in a 
French green-room, 88 ; his 
Christmas letter, 95 ; on his 
work, 97, 98 ; on a ride and the 
characters met in it, 102 ; in 
Paris again, 104 , on d'Orsay, 
in ; at a French ball, 114 ; at 
Cambridge, 117; his "smash" 
at the Literary Fund, 120 ; on 
a visit to an emigrant ship, 124 ; 
his review of Fielding in the 
Times, 125 ; on handwritings, 
129; on funerals, 129; his ode 
for the Exliibition, 132 et seq. ; 
on the exhibition, 134 ; on mys- 
ticism, 139 ; on the Rhine, 143 ; 
at Wiesbaden, 144 ; at Heidel- 
berg, 144 ; at Berne, 147 ; on 
his fortieth birthday, 147 ; at 
Lucerne, 149 ; in Paris again, 
151 ; on the death of Mr. Brook- 
field's father, 157 ; in New York, 
158 ; his lectures there, 160 ; in 
Philadelphia, 162 ; in Baltimore- 
and Washington, 165 ; his opin- 
ion of American cities, 165 ; on 
Ills lectures, 168 ; at Richmond, 
168 ; at Savannah, 169 ; on the 
Saturday Review's criticisms, 170 ; 
his imaginary letter from New 
York, 172 ; his resignation from 
Punch, 174; anecdotes of, 176 f/ 
scq. 
Thackeray, Dr , 118. 



Tidy, Mrs., 46. 

Trench, Richard Chenevix, 155. 

Turpin, Mrs. Broolcfield's maid, 23, 

9Z- 

" yANITY FAIR," the Spectator's 
notice of, 10, 29 «., 178 
ei seq. 



INDEX. 

Villiers, Charles, 100, 103. 



189 



Y^ALDEGRAVE, Lady, 107. 

Washington, Thackeray at, 
165. 
Wliitmore, Mrs , 73. 
Wiesbaden, Thackeray at, 144. 
Wilmot, Foley, 153. 



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